


The Avengers Versus The X-Men

by MsMockingbird



Series: The Mockingverse [16]
Category: Mockingbird (Marvel) - Fandom, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Wolverine (Comics), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Other, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-03
Updated: 2016-07-02
Packaged: 2018-06-06 03:40:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 22,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6736618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MsMockingbird/pseuds/MsMockingbird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What could cause a rift between the two oldest and most powerful superhero teams in the Marvel Universe?</p><p>Well, Wolverine gutting Mockingbird might be a start...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Tripwire

**Author's Note:**

> For those interested in the time line, this would be set the year after "The Siege of New York", in the winter of the year of Hawkeye and Mockingbird's summer "Road Trip".

"Salem? _The_ Salem?" Fitz asked from the back seat of Bobbi's personal Arc. The Stark Motors electric-reactor hybrid sports car was custom painted a sleek dark-blue-almost-black with white trim and had a stylized mockingbird figure for a hood ornament. She didn't get to drive it much since it screamed 'Hi! I'm an Avenger!'. "The X-Men live in a mansion in the place known for burning witches?" He sounded amused in that very slightly condescending British way he had sometimes.

Bobbi turned her head all the way around to look at him with a snarky grin, prompting a squeak from Simmons in the passenger seat. Grinning, the Avenger took her hands right off the wheel and crossed her arms. The car continued serenely forward and then around one of curves on the sleepy back country road. It even missed the snow banks piled to each side of the road, in a New York state winter. "Com'on Jemma like a custom Starkmobile can't drive itself?"

"It can't," Fitz said with snort. "Not for long. I helped him with the schematics and we made them self-limit driverless time to less than a minute. Then it pulls over and shuts off, send an emergency signal."

Laughing, Bobbi turned back to the road and took the wheel again. "Yeah, he didn't want our personals to be able to travel without input unless it was exigent circumstances--like an explicit verbal order or remote controlled. Didn't want us cruising around unconscious and bleeding out or something. In any case, yes, Fitz the actual witch burning Salem and gosh I wonder why it would have that reputation since the Xavier family's been here since the Mayflower landed?"

"Are you suggesting the Salem Witch Trials were actually proto-mutant persecution?" Simmons said in a suddenly fascinated voice. 

"Pretty much just saying that out loud, m'dear. That's exactly what they were and things aren't a hell of a lot better now. Which is why the X-Men, the second most powerful super human team on the planet--after the Avengers, of course--lurk out here in the middle of no where. It's easier than dealing with the bigots and assholes they get." She swept both of them with a look. "So, hey, if something looks weird or bizarre its okay to stare a little. They understand the impulse. Just try not to blurt out 'You're covered in spikes!' or 'What's with the tail?'."

"Good lord, woman, we're British. Imperturbable and excessively polite are both in the genetic make-up," Simmons retorted.

They all laughed.

"Really, though, we have different mission goals as teams. The Fantastic Four are explorer/scientists. The Avengers, well, we're the frontline major event go-to strike force. The Defenders are just a loose collective that come together for specific, smaller threats. The Runaways are one step up from a street gang, really. The X-Men can do all those things but they spend most of their time protecting mutants and mutant rights within the framework of threat assessment. We're allies and personal friends...that sometimes disagree with each other vehemently. You should see Steve and Cyclops go at it about letter vs spirit of the law, and civil rights and personal responsibilities. It gets scary because they're both actually right, from opposite sides of the issues. You just want them to stop fighting. Clint once yelled 'Can't you see what you're doing to the children?' in the middle of a baseball game a few years back." She smiled fondly at the memory then grimaced. "We lost, damn grand-slam home run right over Thor's head by Colossus caught on fire which was ruled fair by Jarvis and I am still pissed off about that..."

She devolved into muttering for a moment.

"They do a mean Christmas spread though. If you can wrangle an invite, it's totally worth the calories. Since you two have agreed to be our semi-permanent liaisons and we need--really really need post the Siege debacle--to foster closer relations among the teams it was time to show you around the X-Mansion. Just the public bits, probably. They're cagey about the underground and that's cool. We're the same way." She paused and studied the tree-lined road, bucolic and empty but for their car. Her face grew sad and quiet for a moment. "You two need to know where you can run to stay safe. No matter what, even if we were on opposite sides of a war, our non-combatants could seek refuge with the other team. You might spend your time locked in a cell but they'd keep you safe."

"Would that happen?" Fitz asked. "The X-Men and the Avengers going to war with each other?"

Bobbi sighed. "It's almost happened twice. Once over Magneto and that only ended because he turned himself in to the United Nations for trial. The other one Steve literally won't talk about but it had something to do with World War II, and Black Widow, and Wolverine and the Winter Soldier. Cap, Storm, Widow and Cyclops talked it out some how but things got super tense for about two weeks. There were a couple of clashes, Clint kicked the shit out of Angel; I wound up nearly drowning in the middle of the Atlantic. That douchebag Namor saved me and spent like four days claiming he couldn't get me back to the surface right then and perhaps I wanted to sleep with him, hmmmmm? He has a human fetish apparently."

"Oh my god, what did you do?" Jemma said with a horrified laugh.

"Pointed out that if he was still alive when I was done hitting him, spear guns were functionally just underwater bows and if he touched me the first thing I'd do when I escaped Atlantis is teach Clint to scuba dive." Mockingbird smiled fiercely. "Even underwater, they know what Hawkeye can do."

"So, it could happen then? The Avengers versus the X-Men?" Fitz repeated, dogged and practical. 

"Yes. But it gets less and less likely the more time we spend around each other. Hence...this trip."

Fitz nodded, accepting the premise. "This place certainly is sleepy. I don't think we've seen another car since we turned off the main road back there."

"We haven't. I wonder if there's some sort of cider festival or something, though it's the wrong time of year for it."

"You people don't make cider, you make apple pop with a little alcohol in it," Jemma said. 

"I can still have you both deported, you smart ass," Mockingbird replied but she seemed distracted. At the next four way stop, she turned to the right suddenly, then sped up. In a few minutes they were pulling into the square of a beautiful little American colonial town, with a park in the center, benches, a war memorial, quaint shops...and an air of total desertion. Nothing moved in any direction. The streets and sides walks were clear, with neat piles of swept and shoveled snow at regular intervals. Frost covered all the windows, which looked dark and cold from the outside.

Bobbi kept her hands on the wheel for a moment, then spun the car around and stopped it in the middle of the street, pointing out of the square. She reached into the compartment between the front seats and withdrew a hand gun, checking the clip and barrel in a few smooth practiced motions. The gun she handed to Jemma, the car keys to Fitz. She popped the trunk and got out of the vehicle, all in silence. The two MI-13 scientists followed her. Behind the car, she stripped down to her underwear as though it were not below freezing and peeled into her Mockingbird tactical suit. Fitz studiously gazed in every other direction. Jemma watched Bobbi's back, earning her an approving smile. 

Shrugging into her trench coat and pulling her tac goggles over her eyes to complete her gear, Mockingbird gestured around. "This is North Salem town. It's the closest populated area to the X-Mansion. Several hundred people live here. So, where are they? No radio chatter, nothing on the police scanners. Last snow fall was two days ago and these buildings are stone cold, no residual heat left in them per my HUD. No bodies. No blood. The X-Men would _know_ if something happened here; they might not call right away but they'd at least leave a damn message."

She scanned across the whole area, turning in a circle. At two points she stopped, made an adjustment to her goggles. At a third point, she murmured "huh" and went silent again. When she came back to Fitz-Simmons Bobbi was wholly subsumed into the Avenger. 

Mockingbird nodded at them both. "Here's what's going to happen. We're going to walk around the town a little and check for life. If at any point I give you an instruction you will obey it without question. If I order you to run, you will come back to the car and get in, with Leo in the drivers seat. If I order you to leave me behind, you will drive as fast as physically possible out of this area. I gave Jemma the gun because she's a better shot, I gave you the keys, Leo, because you're a better driver. Don't trade them off."

Then she marched off in the direction she'd been facing when she said 'huh' without waiting for their answer. They trailed behind her, both looking nervously around at every door way and scrap of litter.

The silence started as eerie and became oppressive within a few meters. Mockingbird kept up a slow, smooth scan, her hands loose at her sides and never far from her weapons. As they passed out of the square into a residential street she pulled out her batons and twirled them in her grip.

Every house was empty, every store locked and cold. The streets showed no signs of life...until they had walked two more blocks, almost to the end of the built up area. They had turned a corner and were unable to see the car or the square when Mockingbird held up one hand abruptly, holstering her batons so fast it seemed she'd never had them. She touched her goggles and went very still. 

Smiling, the expression more baring teeth than anything friendly, she kick turned on one heel and began striding back the way they came, her voice sweet and clear and friendly when she spoke. She sounded so happy and calm that both Jemma and Leo did not quite register her words and she had to repeat herself.

"Head back to the car, now. Right now. Move normally, walk calmly. But go."

They caught up with her and she faded back till they were in front of her a pace. "Listen to me, no talking back, no arguing. Everything will be still and calm right up until it slams into high gear. I cannot explain, you just have to obey. Keep walking back to the car. If I scream run, you run to the car, you get in and drive away. You leave me and you don't look back."

Fitz opened his mouth and she cut him off savagely.

"No, Leo, you do not argue. You do not stay. No heroism, no waiting around. If you try to help me here, you will fail, _you will both die_ and you will make my sacrifice in vain."

"Sacrifice?" Simmons whispered, her eyes darting around like a frightened goldfish.

"There is almost no chance I'm going to live through the next hour, Jemma. You two will not make that death meaningless, you understand me? Both of you nod."

They nodded.

Out of the corner of her eye, Simmons saw motion. On top of one of the buildings. Just a flash of dark and light, moving smooth as a tiger.

"Don't look at him," Mockingbird said quietly. They heard the sound of plastic ripping, then the distinctive hiss of a dermal spray.

"What did you just take?" Simmons snapped.

"Something Bruce would love to skin me alive for making, and you can tell him I knew that when I made it, neener, neener."

"Mockingbird--"

"My personal hellbrew, he calls it. Clint, Nat and I all carry some. Amphetamines, adrenaline, epinephrine, high absorption neurotransmitter replacements, analgesics. For about thirty minutes, I'm Captain fucking America." Her voice already sounded manic. "And it only takes a couple months off my life each time!"

Jemma winced and shook her head.

"I'm about to lock my coms open on the emergency channel, which means the team will go into red alert mode and you're going to hear everything I do. No matter what you hear remember I am doing this so you can get away." She sounded eerily, fatalistically calm.

Leo looked back at her. Mockingbird was fully ascendant, her strong beautiful face as remote and cold as a marble statue. She quirked her lips at him lightly. "I'd say tell Clint I love him but I'll get the chance to do that myself I think, when the coms lock open. Tell Bruce neener neener like I said. He'll like that."

"He'd prefer you lived," Simmons said sadly. 

"Me too. Clint and I only had sex twice last night. No where near enough to go into the after life on."

She looked up as though judging the angle of the sun in the sky.

"Bobbi," Leo Fitz said, his voice as calm as hers. "What's going on here?"

"We didn't walk into a town, Fitz Simmons. We walked into a tripwire."

The motion out of the corner of Jemma's eye suddenly exploded towards them. Mockingbird reached out and shoved them both out of them way, almost gently. They both stumbled forward and spun around.

A...man? landed on the pavement in front of them, with Mockingbird standing between them. He was naked, his body covered in a near pelt of dark hair. His face was set in a snarl of pure animal rage and as he landed six bright claws slide out of his hands, flashing in the air. A distinctive "SNIKT" sound hit them with a flat, dull finality.

Wolverine. Their silent stalker had been Wolverine, of the X-Men.

"Run," Mockingbird said softly. 

The naked man and the Avenger exploded into motion at the same time. As Wolverine leapt forward Mockingbird collapsed to one side, her hand sweeping up in an arc, releasing something in a wide spray in the air in front of him. Wolverine hit the cloud and howled, spinning in mid-air to land in a crouch, his hands clutching his face. In a confused flash, Simmons saw livid chemical burns appear on his exposed skin. Then Fitz had her by the arm and they were running as fast as they could for the car. 

Behind them, the mutant screamed, a hunting cry, and came after them. They heard Mockingbird shout "No!" over the sound of his terrifying rush. With no conscious volition, her hands came up, Jemma turned and emptied the clip of the gun into Wolverine's torso. She saw the impact of at least seven of the bullets, the spray of blood. He was close enough she saw chips of bone flying into the air from a bullet that hit his chest. Armor piercing rounds and they didn't even slow him down.

He was so close. She was going to die.

A glass ball hit him on the back of the head, exploding in a spray of red and colorless liquid. He jerked when it hit him and dropped back into that feral crouch. A wave of something sickly sweet wafted over her as Leo manhandled her around to run again.

 _Pheromones,_ she thought. Blood, laced with pheromones. Trigger scent, to draw the predator off the running humans. Mockingbird even fought like a biochemist. 

They made it to the car and it was already running. Leaping in, they heard the radio chatter on the emergency channel for the first time.

"--gaged, repeat, I've engaged with Wolverine. He's not responding to verbal cues, or his name. I've identified myself as Mockingbird and an Avenger. Fitz Simmons are away, I think."

As though spurred by her words, Leo slammed the car into gear and pressed the accelerator to the floor. Jemma huddled in the passenger seat, weeping and reloading Mockingbird's gun with hands as steady as rock. 

****

"Fitz Simmons are away, I think."

Jarvis's voice slid into her ears. "They are leaving the area now, in your vehicle. Internal readings indicate neither is injured."

Mockingbird felt a flash of satisfaction as she sprinted head long down the slippery road, hearing the sound of pursuit gaining on her with terrifying rapidity.

Captain America came onto the channel. "Any sign of the other X-Men?"

"No," and then her HUD told her he was in the air behind her, claws out. She went back, doubling over on herself, her weighted combat boots slamming into his face as he went over top her. The edge of speed and clarity from the drugs got her past and away from him in a tumbling pass without being touched.

"Wrong, wrong wrong, no no I'm not that fast not even now, no," she hissed.

"Mockingbird, can you get to safety?" Cap's voice was comforting, deep and rich and sounding majestically calm even though they were both talking fast.

"No. All I can do is delay--" and she deked hard to one side, down a narrow lane between houses. Behind her, Wolverine slammed into the wall of one of the houses, unable to stop himself, bare feet on the ice.

He screamed again, nothing human in the noise, but seemed to be standing still. Mockingbird hit a patch of the same ice--she'd known it was there from her HUD--and turned into it until she was sliding backwards facing him. At the edge of the slick spot, her boots grounded out and she dropped into a crouch. He was in a similar position, his breath steaming, the only sign he was naked in the freezing cold. 

She called out to him again.

"Logan? Logan, it's Mockingbird. Bobbi. I used to bounce for you in Madripoor. You've eaten my caramel salt popcorn. Whatever you are seeing, I am not an enemy."

Her only response was a thick dark growl but under the noise, in the sub vocalization, the HUD picked up a word.

_goooooooooooooooo_

She rose to her feet and backed away from him, step by step, her hands pulled back into the sleeves of her jacket. The drugs in her blood made everything preternaturally sharp, as though carved into the skin of reality with a knife. 

So she saw the exact instant his facial expression changed.

As they had faced off, his snarl had...lacked conviction...was the only way to put it. He looked like a man at war with himself, twitching and all but mumbling. 

She was maybe thirty meters away from him when his face set into a killing mask. He bounded forward in a powerful lope, hands coming up in his fighting stance, to present his claws.

Mockingbird pushed off hard, like a sprinter--

\--and ran towards him.

As she hit the same patch of ice, she dropped into a full baseball-style hook slide. Looking up, she saw him pass above her. Since he was naked, that was quite an eyeful she had to admit. Her left hand emerged from her sleeve with a mass of weighted wire and threw it upwards, towards his legs. 

The bundle twitched for a second, then suctioned onto his skin, twisting and unraveling to wrap around his ankles. He hit the ground face first and rose to his knees, roaring.

Mockingbird activated the taser-bola, modified from the one Hawkeye used in his arrows. Iron Man had added a powerful magnetic component, so she could adhere it to cars or giant robots or suits of armor...or a metal-laced skeleton. At full power it was strong enough to literally kill an elephant. 

She had it on full power now and Wolverine still almost made it to his feet before the current surging through his body sent him crashing back down again. That bought her maybe five minutes.

Mockingbird emerged at full speed back out onto the main road of the town. Going left would get her to the road out, towards the highway and possible rescue.

She ran right. She would not lead Wolverine, now in hunter/killer mode, towards innocent people. Fitz Simmons had gone that way. 

The voices in her head came back. They had fallen silent during her fight, which would have been transmitted live via her HUD back to Avengers Tower.

Captain America breathed strength into her heart with his voice. "Nice work, Mock. We have help on the way to extract you."

There was a chance the drugs were messing with her emotions a little too.

She spotted a path through a stand of trees and remembered the open fields beyond led towards the X-Mansion. She changed directions towards it instantly.

"Won't be in time."

"Yeah, it will, little bird." Hawkeye's beloved growl echoed in her head, drawing tears to roll down her cheeks, little trails of cold salt.

"Won't and you know it."

"Bobbi, are you hurt? Every physical reading is spiking," said Bruce Banner.

"Took a hit of my special brew, Brucie-baby. I'm feeling great!" She almost giggled. 

"YOU DID WHAT--" His roar in her ears started to go green at the edges and was cut off by Black Widow's bellow.

"BRUCE CALM DOWN!" Even the Hulk obeyed her when she spoke like that.

"I had to," Mockingbird called out. "I wouldn't have lasted past the first exchange otherwise; he would have killed Fitz Simmons. I hit him with the caustics, the pheromones and the taser, Steve. They all worked, slowed him down, but you know him. You can't do the same thing twice."

"I do know him. Or I knew Logan. I'm not sure what's chasing you." Captain America sounded sorrowful.

"I know," came Hawkeye's voice, livid with rage. "A corpse."

Mockingbird stumbled, feeling her limbs start to shake. She was pushing hard enough that the fatigue poisons in her blood were already beating down the drugs. "No!" She yelled. "No, you're not allowed to say that. You're not allowed to do that!" 

She snapped her batons together on the fly and pole vaulted a still running stream. As she landed on the other side, she heard the distinctive sound of a body moving at speed through the bushes behind her. 

"If he kills you, little bird--"

"You won't hunt him down! You won't! Damn you, Clint, promise me! Steve, promise...this is still Wolverine. Still Logan. Not an animal to be put down."

Her HUD threw a schematic up, showing that her pursuer was only a few seconds behind her now. She dodged around a stand of willows, then dropped to her knees and tucked her staff under her left arm pit, slanted up at a forty degree angle, the far end braced against a thick root system just visible under the snow.

"If you treat him like a monster that's what he'll become. Do the math."

And she snapped the sword end of her pole out behind her as he slammed straight through the trunks of the trees, ripping them to kindling on the way. Mockingbird felt the shuddering impact as her blade--coated with monomolecular diamond and capable of scratching the Vibranium in Captain America's shield--impaled him right through the torso, skipping off his Adamantium coated ribs on the way. Blood hot as lava splashed across the back of her neck. She dove forward, rolling in the snow. Her goggles caught on a rock and were ripped off her face as she rose to her feet.

And fell down again as pain seared up her leg. She saw three straight cuts across the front of her thigh, right through the reinforced super Kevlar. She saw the white of bone before blood began pouring out. He'd caught her with his claws at full extension as she tumbled. She hadn't even felt the initial cut, as sharp and fast as a shark bite. 

"I'm hit." She said. "Can't run anymore."

"Try," Hawkeye said, his voice like a dead thing. 

"I am, sport," she responded. She grabbed at a nearby tree, hauled herself up, swallowed a scream of agony as her injured leg took even the tiniest amount of weight. Wolverine was thrashing through the debris of wood and snow behind her, nearly free of the boar spear she'd turned her staff into.

Mockingbird took a deep breath, and managed to stagger a few steps through the line of trees and into a clearing, just smooth fresh snow. In the distance rose the peaked roof of the X-Mansion.

She smiled a little. She felt no more pain, no more cold. Even the jittery remnants of the drugs burning in her blood seemed to clear away, leaving a mellow lassitude in their wake. A single hot hard breath twitched her hair from behind.

"I love you, Clint."

_SNIKT_

She saw the four metal claws emerge from the front of her torso. When they withdrew, Mockingbird fell to her knees and dropped her chin to her chest, watching idly as the bright white snow turned red.


	2. The Other Side of the Conversation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What the Avengers saw..
> 
> (I was going to add more to this but well, just giving you this vignette makes me feel extra evil. You're welcome angelt626.)

**Minus thirty minutes from the end of the last chapter**

Clint sighed and stretched, trying to unkink the muscle on the back of his neck. He'd been hunched over his arrow making workbench in the Nest spare room for--he squinted at the display on his phone--geez, four hours. Normally, Bobbi wandered in around hour two and gave him a neck massage and sometimes a nice relaxing blow job. Course that usually meant the end of his tinkering for the day so he supposed he was glad to get the time in.

He'd still prefer Bobbi in his lap, rather than metal shavings and splashes of oil and solvent. He stood up, bumping his hip into her work station. The "office" was cramped by the table holding his sprawl of dissected arrow heads, re-worked bow arms and tools. He made Natasha's mini stun discs--his preternaturally sharp eye sight and fine motor control actually made him better at it than even Stark--and some of Mockingbird's more esoteric toys. The three of them spent many a happy hour in the little room, making weapons, doing science, sharpening knives. He was pretty blessed that his two best girls were also best friends.

Without conscious volition Clint tapped an app on his Starkphone and pulled up a GPS locator. It pulsed a soothing royal blue on a back road near North Salem Center. Since the Siege and what he thought of as "The Barney Incident" he'd been quietly--compulsively--keeping tabs on Mockingbird as much as possible. Something about nearly losing her twice by his own actions had snapped part of him. She knew, of course, and gave him tacit permission. A few times he'd gone into the app and found it turned off. He'd left it off. He was not going to spoil so elegant a gesture by betraying her trust. 

He was drinking a cup of coffee--which meant he had pulled the glass decanter off the element, replaced it with a mug to catch any drips and was drinking straight out of the carafe--when the speakers in the Nest locked open with their distinctive "external emergency" buzz.

Before he'd heard the first word, he'd dropped the carafe to smash on the floor and was out the door, into the elevator and on his way to the tactical floor. 

Mockingbird was the only Avenger out of the Tower. 

_"Run"_ Her voice was soft, calm, but he heard the steel behind it and the sound of Fitz Simmons gasping and exclaiming in shock in the background. A confused series of noises, what sounded like an animal screaming. The next words chilled his blood.

 _"Logan, it's Mockingbird, we're with the Avengers....NO!"_ A gun barked--her gun, he knew the sound of the modified 9mms she favored--but only seven impacts out of fifteen. Not her shooting then. The sound of smashing glass.

The elevator expelled him into the darkened tactical center of Avengers Tower, lit up by the wall display and hologram fountains of data. Captain America, Black Widow and Bruce Banner were already there; the other elevator disgorged Iron Man, Falcon and Thor the next second. 

The feed from Mockingbird's HUD was sprayed across the wall, showing a snow lined small town street in a blur of motion. She was running fast from something. 

_"I've engaged, repeat, I've engaged with Wolverine. He's not responding to verbal cues, or his name. I've identified myself as Mockingbird and an Avenger. Fitz Simmons are away, I think."_

Jarvis spoke quietly out of thin air, the words relaying on all channels. "They are leaving the area now, in your vehicle. Internal readings indicate neither is injured."

Steve looked up from where he and Black Widow were flashing through some list on the desktop display at his hand. He touched the 'open com' button. They would not risk distracting her with idle room chatter. "Any sign of the other X-Men?"

 _"No."_

"Shit!" yelled Falcon, pointing. Tony cursed wildly. The rest of them--not as expert at reading the high speed cloud of data provided by the HUD--took a heartbeat longer to see the danger. Wolverine was in the air behind her, claws out from the wire-frame display Jarvis suddenly provided to the less adept. 

The HUD spun, tumbled as she did. A sharp red flash indicated impact--her boots to his face. Then the feed steadied again and she was running. Bruce dove for a side computer, pulled up a medical display. Every reading was off the charts but steady.

"Holy Hell," breathed Thor.

Despite his heartbreaking terror, Clint's pride surged. Mockingbird had just god damn dodged _Wolverine_.

 _"Wrong, wrong wrong, no no I'm not that fast not even now, no."_ was muttered through her feed, not to them.

"Mockingbird, can you get to safety?" Steve looked up, his pale beautiful face turned stark and stern by the under lighting. He sounded so calm everyone in the room felt their pulse slow a smidge. Only his eyes, like wells of agony, betrayed his emotional state. He turned his head and hissed something to Black Widow, head down again paging through lists.

Clint did calculations in his head. None of the flyers, Falcon, Iron Man or Thor, could get to her in less than seventeen minutes and the Quinjet would take longer. She was all alone out there.

"No. All I can do is delay--" and the HUD showed her deke hard to one side, into a narrow lane between houses. The sound of a body hitting a wooden wall behind her was loud.

That animal scream sounded again, nothing human in the noise, but the flashing dot representing Wolverine remained stationary. 

Mockingbird 's view slid and spun, dropping down to look back the way she came from a crouch. A naked hair-covered man faced off against her in almost the same position at the other end of a narrow lane, hemmed by houses and plank fencing. 

Bobbi spoke, her voice soft and cajoling, almost hypnotic. The Avengers were so used to her--she was so natural with all of them--they all forgot that talking people into things was one of her skills.

_"Logan? Logan, it's Mockingbird. Bobbi. I used to bounce for you in Madripoor. You've eaten my caramel salt popcorn. Whatever you are seeing, I am not an enemy."_

A growl, as menacing as an attack dog, sounded. Tony quirked his head, started entering commands on his own work station, isolating the audio. 

"Carol!" Black Widow yelled. "Carol Danvers is in town!"

Steve swiped a hand at her. "Yes, now. Jarvis, warn air traffic control Captain Marvel is about to go super sonic."

Natasha turned away, her mouth moving as she called the auxiliary Avenger's ID card. 

Clint clutched the edge of the table, his knees suddenly weak. Captain Marvel was the fastest flier in the super hero community, other than the Alpha Flight twins Aurora and Northstar (up in the Canadian Arctic) and Photon who couldn't carry anyone. Not just the fastest, the best since she was an Air Force test pilot. Also strong, a great fighter and able to knock even some of the big tanks down with her energy blasts. Carol could get to Mockingbird in minutes and maybe even fight off a crazed Wolverine long enough for extraction. 

They might be able to get her out alive.

"Fuck!" screamed Bruce Banner. Bruce _did not swear_.

On the screen, Wolverine charged directly at Mockingbird. 

The HUD jumped as she pushed off hard, like a sprinter, suicidally directly at him. 

The view tilted back, as though she was hook sliding. Wolverine passed over her head and a mass of something that looked like bundled wire hit his legs. 

"That yours?" Falcon asked Hawkeye.

"I think...she and Tony were fucking around with one of my bolas a while back."

"Magnetic differential charge on it now. It'll stick to metal and generates enough power to take down an elephant," Stark said in a distracted tone. "Oh, look, he's getting up. And down again, thank god."

Bobbi's display showed her pelting away from Wolverine, turning left and running further away from the main road, from Fitz Simmons (the tracker on Mockingbird's car showed Fitz had pushed it to top speed), from any innocent people.

"A true Valkyrie," murmured Thor. "Thinking first of others."

"I'd be happier if she was selfish," Clint rasped, his throat tight and dry.

Black Widow looked up. "Carol's away."

Steve straightened up a little, just the tiniest amount of relief flickering across his face, ruthlessly suppressed. He hit the com button again. "Nice work, Mock. We have help on the way to extract you."

The feed showed her entering a forested area, running between snow covered trees, vaulting a stream. A small red dot behind her started moving again.

 _"Won't be in time."_ she sang back, her voice manic.

"Yeah, it will, little bird." Hawkeye growled into his own com, trying to sound reassuring and knowing he sounded angry.

_"Won't and you know it."_

Which of course they all did, and were all varying levels of sick and furious about, but a wave of wincing passed over the room to hear it stated so baldly.

"Bobbi, are you hurt? Every physical reading is spiking," Bruce asked anxiously.

 _"Took a hit of my special brew, Brucie-baby. I'm feeling great!"_

Well, that explained the manic tone in her voice. Clint put his head down and prayed for the dangerous chemicals to make her faster, sharper. Keep her alive just a little longer. 

"YOU DID WHAT--" If Bruce had been a cat his spine would have been arched like a rainbow, he was spitting mad so quickly. His deep dark eyes started to go green. Thor stepped forward, his big hands coming up to reach for Banner.

It was Natasha who slapped him out of his change.

"BRUCE CALM DOWN!" she bellowed, her face expressionless even as she yelled loudly enough Mockingbird had to have heard it through Bruce's open com. Bruce staggered back as though physically struck, panting.

"I, yes, I'm...I'm going to prep the surgical team. Keep her alive god damn it." He spun and fled the room, nearly in tears.

Hawkeye refocused on Mockingbird's voice.

 _"--wouldn't have lasted past the first exchange otherwise; he would have killed Fitz Simmons. I hit him with the caustics, the pheromones and the taser, Steve."_ Oh, god she sounded like a little kid, proudly reporting her test results to dad. Clint's shattering heart started to patter to the floor around him, piece by crystal piece. 

She continued. _"They all worked, slowed him down, but you know him. You can't do the same thing twice."_

"I do know him. Or I knew Logan. I'm not sure what's chasing you." Captain America said quietly, his whole face now inexpressibly sad.

Without thought, Hawkeye leaned into the com. "I know. A corpse."

She yelled at him, her tone as desperate as her situation for the first time. _"No! No, you're not allowed to say that. You're not allowed to do that!"_

"If he kills you, little bird--" _I'll die too_ hung unsaid in his throat.

_"You won't hunt him down! You won't! Damn you, Clint, promise me! Steve, promise...this is still Wolverine. Still Logan. Not an animal to be put down."_

"I promise," breathed Steve but just into the air, as though he couldn't bear to say it on the record.

Black Widow sat down, her face in her hands. Everyone knew she and Wolverine had some history together and this situation had to be pure agony for her. Thor wept openly, the Asgardian prince who had never been afraid to show his true emotions to the world. Tony and Falcon just stared at the display, both gathering arcane info from the various numbers and readings flashing across it like lightening.

The feed stopped as Mockingbird seemed to kneel suddenly in the snow. The end of her pole extended out in front of her, grounded against some roots. The red dot was nearly on her.

"Oh, shit, she's going to stick him like a pig," Falcon said.

_"If you treat him like a monster that's what he'll become. Do the math."_

The sound of the trees behind her being shredded by Adamantium claws drowned out the snap of her staff's sword-blade being driven straight through Wolverine's body, spitting him like a marshmallow.

Steve flinched.

The view rolled forward, then snagged and settled, half-buried in the snow. They saw Mockingbird for the first time, sprawled length wise on the ground with her back to them. She struggled to get up. The sound of her voice was muffled by distance and debris.

Hawkeye fell to his knees.

_"I'm hit. Can't run anymore."_ She gulped, swallowing agony. They all knew the sound.

Blood was pouring down her leg now from three parallel rents in her tactical suit. And the suit was designed to partially constrict and block blood flow from open wounds.

"Try," Hawkeye said as his soul left his body.

_"I am, sport._

She staggered away from her goggles, into a clearing. Wolverine stalked into the field of view and raised his fisted hands in front of him, palms up. His killing stance.

"Logan no," whispered Captain America.

 _"I love you, Clint."_ Mockingbird spoke lightly, loudly, sincerely.

SNIKT 

The naked man turned and walked out of frame, leaving the Avengers staring at Mockingbird's back.

There was a pause and she settled almost delicately to her knees in a growing pool of red.


	3. Deliberate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mockingbird fights for her life.
> 
> A rescue.
> 
> A welcome visitor.
> 
> Revelations.

**Minus Fifteen Minutes from last chapter**

Carol Danvers snorted and waved her hand at Jessica Drew. "Not my problem. You want to shop for ridiculous boots, you're on your own. You want to shop for leather jackets, I'm there. Pick one." 

Across the coffee shop table the black-haired maybe-maybe-not-former-HYDRA-operative laughed. "I only made you buy those red things because they make you eighteen feet tall and it's hilarious watching boys scatter out of your way like you're Godzilla." 

Carol mock-scowled. "Oh, yes, it's not hard enough to get a date--" 

A sharp buzz sounded from her pocket. Jessica reached over, holding out her hands for Carol's jacket which was whipped off and thrown at her. Danvers fled the shop at a dead sprint, found a space with open sky and dragged the ID card out, slipping her earbud into the other ear. 

Black Widow's voice, cool and measured, greeted her. "Captain Marvel. Wolverine has gone rogue and attacked Mockingbird in North Salem. She needs extraction five minutes ago." 

Jarvis broke in. "Air traffic control has been advised and you are cleared to go super sonic at the appropriate altitude." 

"On my way," Captain Marvel tucked the card away and threw her hands down to her sides. Her fists glowed yellow and she was in the air, shooting straight up into the sky like a rocket. Her hands started to burn white as she poured out more of the Kree energy bound into her very bones, gaining altitude. Her mask and cowl--made by Tony Stark--folded out from her costume, covering her face and head. Her street clothes burned away with friction, leaving her in a red, blue and gold tactical suit designed for aerodynamics. On the surface of her lenses a red dot pulsed to the north east.

The altimeter spun upwards until she was at a safe height. Captain Marvel threw her hands back and broke the speed of sound.

The cold thin air warmed against her skin, the energy field she projected while flying protecting her from the heat and radiation and everything but the thrill of being here, now, in the stratosphere. Flying free.

There was nothing like it. Nothing. She pitied Iron Man and War Machine, who had to fly encased in metal; this freedom was hers, shared with so few. Not even Photon--the only hero faster than her--could experience it, since her powers involved her turning into energy itself. The explosion that had changed her so fundamentally, made her part alien, made her a strange freak even to herself sometimes also gave her this gift: to fly, unassisted, like a comet, like a star. 

Captain Marvel shone like the sun as she flew to the rescue.

She dumped speed after too short a time, the act of slowing physically painful. Someday--when she had no responsibilities, no cares, no one to answer too (so, never)--she was just going to head up as high as she could and fly until she fell out of the sky.

She angled down, pulling herself under the speed of sound. The red dot had stopped at the edge of an open field north of the town.

Literally. When Carol pulled up into a hover above the area, all she could see was red on the white snow, in rivulets and pools around the kneeling form of a woman with bright blond hair. 

"Jesus!" she gasped, swooping in to land next to Mockingbird, blood staining her boots. Her hands--still charged with energy--came up in front of her.

That, plus the slippery mire of snow and blood, were the only things that saved her life. 

Wolverine burst out of the bushes, snarling, claws extended. He staggered a moment on the greasy pool of blood and water.

Captain Marvel blasted him, pouring white-hot pure power out of her raised fists. The copious hair on his body ignited with an evil burning smell even as the concussive force knocked him backwards to crash through several stands of trees.

Almost, almost she charged after him. She was a soldier born and bred and a fighter pilot by trade, when she wasn't an Avenger. Her blood was up and she wanted a brawl.

The crimson and pink surrounding her pulled her back to reality. Mockingbird was dying or dead in front of her. She had to get her back to the Tower.

Unceremoniously, before Wolverine could recover, Captain Marvel scooped up the other woman, dragged her coat up to protect her face and shot straight into the air, as fast as she could push herself. Every cell in her body poured out its alien gift as she prayed there was a spark of life left in the limp body huddled against her chest.

She hit Mach two back to New York; any faster and she'd kill Mockingbird from sheer g force trauma . She decelerated hard and fast above the Tower, then shot downwards. Her coms--which always shorted out when she was throwing off that much power--clicked back on.

"Got her, where, where?" Captain Marvel yelled.

"Come to us," Iron Man said.

She spotted him and Falcon circling next to a wide plate glass window on about the fortieth floor. As she approached they pressed suction handles against the glass and lifted the whole sheet out and up. 

Without slowing, Carol shot into the room they had just exposed and hit the floor. 

Inside, their hair whipping in the wind hammering through the room, Black Widow and Hawkeye stood next to a gurney. A medical crew hovered behind them. Widow pointed at the gurney as outside Iron Man and Falcon pressed the glass plate back into place. The room went still and quiet other than the sound of Iron Man's lasers soldering the window back into place.

Carol laid Mockingbird on the gurney--as she did, Hawkeye grabbed his wife's jacket, hauled it off and out of the way. Black Widow pressed what looked like a laser pointer against the top of the blond's tactical suit. She whipped it down the length of the woman's body, then repeated it on the other side. Where the instrument passed, the suit split on a concealed seam and the medical crew darted forward, stripping the fabric off her like a banana skin. 

Underneath, Mockingbird was pale as alabaster, other than the blood soak underwear she wore. The oddly spaced puncture wounds in her torso and the neat bone deep gashes on her thighs looked like autopsy photos. Worse, they were no longer bleeding. 

A Hispanic woman with a calm, serious face touched something to the side of Mockingbird's neck. She looked down at the instrument then back up, directly at Hawkeye and Black Widow. 

"Heartbeat."

Hawkeye's gasping breath was loud and ragged.

"Go, go, go, into surgery now, now," the nurse continued, running out of the room. The team had the gurney moving so fast it was gone in the blink of an eye. Carol expected Hawkeye to follow. Instead, he sank slowly to his knees.

Mockingbird's tactical suit and boots, discarded on the floor, were leaking blood in a sluggish river. It had darkened from the bright arterial red Captain Marvel had seen in the snow in Salem. Hawkeye reached out and placed his left hand into the mess, bringing it up dripping thickening crimson.

Carol Danvers would never forget that sight: Hawkeye staring at his own hand coated in his wife's blood.

*****

In the still mostly dark Avengers Strat/Tac room Steve Rogers finally sat down on a low table and rubbed the back of his neck. He hadn't left the room, not even to see Mockingbird, in the hours since the call had first come in. Fitz and Simmons had dragged in at some point, both on the edge of a nervous breakdown. Bruce had sedated them both as soon as Steve was done talking to them. Captain Marvel was asleep in one of the spare apartments, having burned through a week's worth of energy in less than fifteen minutes.

Bobbi was still in surgery, as they struggled to repair the cut muscles and damaged organs. Hawkeye and Falcon had both donated as much blood as they could--they were the only ones who were medically cleared--and Steve breathed a short prayer that Mockingbird was AB+, universal receptor. Tony's drones had retrieved Bobbi's goggles and staff as well as done a thorough reconnaissance of the area. The roads in and out were barricaded now, thanks to the governor and the National Guard.

Nothing was moving for miles around the X-Mansion. The building itself was as cold and still.

Steve had been staring at the data streams from Mockingbird's HUD, the drones, even weather satellite images trying to make sense of what was happening, what had happened. He couldn't find a pattern, a hook, anything to build on. He missed Bobbi and Natasha keenly at the moment, never realizing till they weren't around how much he had come to rely on their bright wit, their sharp perceptions, their lifetimes of experience so like and unlike his own.

But Bobbi was in critical condition with possible brain damage from the massive blood loss, even if the surgery went well, and he couldn't have pried Natasha away from Clint with both hands and a machete.

He should be out there, at the Mansion, leading a search party for Wolverine. But he couldn't leave. Not until they knew if Mockingbird was going to survive. Unless something rose to a crisis point again, he was better off here, studying. Absorbing.

Waiting.

The elevator sighed open behind him, Stark probably. Bruce was in the surgery, Falcon and Thor were out on patrols just to have something to do. Hill was coordinating with the Guard out at Salem. 

"I can't see anything in this that makes sense, Tony," Steve muttered over his shoulder, still rubbing the back of his neck. It was as close to a nervous habit as he had, since the edge of his cowl rubbed a specific spot against his spine no matter what adjustments they made.

"Are you sure you want to admit that out loud?" said a female voice from behind him.

Steve whipped around. Standing in the doorway was a tall, elegant blond woman. She had a round face with full cheeks, a soft jaw and eyes of a luscious dark brown, like the best chocolate bar you'd ever eat. Her gaze was clear and keen and though she was standing still she carried herself with the same dangerous precision that Black Widow and Mockingbird and Hill displayed. 

Captain America had her in his arms before his heart beat again, his mouth coming down on hers with desperate hunger. They kissed for a long time and he could have gone longer but she pushed him away so she could breathe.

"I missed you too, neighbour," Sharon Carter said with a laugh.

"Did you come because--?"

"No. I heard about it when I got off the plane. I was already coming to see you so I just stepped it up a little." She sighed. "And I was coming with such good news, too."

"I could use some good news right now," Steve said in a small, sad voice. It was a voice he only used with her...and once with Bucky as the world burst into flames and crashed to the ground around him. 

"I've been transferred back to the States. Boston." She gave him that side-eyed look she had, the one where she wasn't sure what his reaction was going to be.

He sat down again, bringing their heads level and smiled for the first time in forever. "You have no idea how happy that makes me."

"Bad time, though," Sharon said. "You don't need the distraction."

Steve dropped his chin to his chest and thought about what everyone in the Tower was doing. He literally couldn't help any of them, though he owed Hawkeye and Black Widow a personal check in. After that? He needed food, his super charged metabolism was unforgiving of neglect. And he needed...he needed Sharon. 

He laughed, a short hard bark. "It's such a cliché, Sharon, but you know what? Bobbi'd want me to distract myself."

He heard her snort. "She probably would."

Steve looked up and reached out a hand. Sharon stepped forward and let him cup her face gently. This part was always hard for him and she was always gracious about it but he knew it was better for both of them if he asked.

"Can you stay the night?" He spoke in that small voice again, his upbringing, his faith and his personal sense of honor all warring with both his heart and his groin. He didn't believe anything he and Sharon had ever done was a sin, or immoral, or caused by anything but love. He'd hoped he'd never treated her with disrespect--he was certain she'd have let him know if he had--but it was hard to fight the ideas about sex he'd literally had beaten into his head as a child.

"Yes," she said simply. His fingers spasmed against her cheek.

"I have to go check on Mockingbird and then I'll be up."

She threw him a critical glance. Steve knew Bruce and Bobbi had gone around to everyone in his life and told them he didn't eat enough. 

"What? I'm not that hungry."

"You have big dark circles under those beautiful eyes, neighbour. I've got delivery coming and you better eat it all before anything else, capiche?." She kissed his palm and left the floor. He took the other elevator to the medical bay.

Hawkeye and Black Widow were sitting on a small sofa in the waiting area, watching a TV showing the surgical suite. Figures in medical scrubs moved deliberately about the room, surrounding the prone form of Mockingbird. She looked like a pale ice model of herself. Black Widow turned and glanced at Steve. 

"Hey," he said, crossing over to them, his eyes mostly on Hawkeye who hadn't looked away from the TV. They knew from the last few times Mockingbird had gotten hurt badly enough to need surgery that Hawkeye would doggedly, irrationally refuse to stop watching her unless drugged or knocked out. "At least they didn't have to shave her head."

Clint actually smiled a little. "Yeah, the bitching while it grows out is non-stop." He looked up at Steve. "You look like shit, Rogers. You should get some food."

Steve grimaced. "Good god, do they have the whole bunch of you well trained."

"We need you healthy, Cap," Natasha said quietly.

"Thank you. How is--?"

"Well, they've put about eight liters of blood into her and finally got the leg wounds to stop bleeding. Missed the femoral artery thank fuck," Clint said, pausing to gulp cold coffee out of a mug. Natasha took up the litany.

"Two claws punctured her right lung, the other two hit her liver and stomach."

Steve whipped his head around and met her eyes. She nodded. "Yeah, I thought the same thing. Four. Not six. He didn't pop the inside claw on the right or the outer claw on the left. Would have hit her heart and other lung."

"She'd have been dead before she hit the ground," Clint said slowly. "She was right. That was still Logan in there, trying to save her life." He looked at Steve. "I'm still going to make him look like a porcupine the next time I see him."

Steve nodded. "I've been studying all the data and something's...wrong...but I can't make it out yet. I'm...I was going to stop for a bit. Get something to eat and....Sharon's here. She's back in the States permanently and she wanted to tell me...us."

Clint stood up and stretched, without that devastating tension he'd had in Vancouver. So this must be going better than that surgery. "Good. No need for all of us to tie ourselves into knots. We'll call if anything changes."

Steve took Clint's shoulder. The archer resisted for a breath then relaxed. Natasha looked away, a tiny smile on her face. The two blond men stared at each other for a long time. There was a similar tempered rage in both of them, though Clint burned hot and Steve got cooler and quieter in his anger.

Steve stepped back. "I should have been down here sooner."

"Better off up there," Clint muttered. "Better off figuring out what we're going to do. But take care of yourself now."

Steve sighed. "You know--"

"Steve, zip it okay? Damn, Tony did this after Vancouver and you're almost as annoying. Everything I got in me right now goes to her. I know you care about her. She knows. She was talking to you there at the end, not me. She wanted you to pick up what she was laying down and for that you need your head clear. 'Kay?" Clint looked him in the eye.

Steve looked away first, nodding and walking back to the elevator. Hawkeye sat back down, staring at the surgery, his lips moving slightly. Steve's enhanced hearing picked up what he was saying.

_"You are my sunshine, my only sunshine..."_

Natasha followed Steve to refill their mugs--the coffee machine and snack table were by the elevators--and touched his arm.

"He means it when he says it's okay, Steve. It is. It's good; she's actually doing well. Bruce was in here a little while ago and said he's not concerned about the repairs. The suit kept enough blood in her brain and core that the damage was mitigated. Five minutes slower on the recovery, that's a different story. But Carol got her back in time. It's long hard micro-surgery now, yeah. And we're going to lose her off the field team for months and months. But she's going to live. Bruce and the team will take care of her, I'll take care of him, Tony and Thor and Sam and Carol will take care of the city. You take care of yourself. Better, let Sharon take care of you."

A weight lifted off his shoulders. He had genuinely forgotten that he lead a _team_ , not just a group of individuals. It was such a strange relief to be _not alone_. He clasped Natasha's hand in a brief, strong grip and took the elevator to his floor.

In the dining area, Sharon had set up a massive amount of Italian food. Steve checked and stared at the table.

"You're expecting maybe the entire Yankees roster to show up and join us?"

Sharon stared at him. "Why on earth, in a world where you hang around with Stark and the Bartons, do you think you can do witty banter?"

"Hurting my feelings, Sharon."

"You don't have any, slugger."

"I'm a sensitive artist at heart, Ms. Carter."

"That you are, Mr. Rogers. That you are."

They smiled at each other. There was an ease in their relationship with each other that neither of them had with anyone else of their preferred sex. As much as he loved Natasha her canny furtiveness made him edgy; Bobbi was his sister, with all the sibling annoyance and shoving that implied. 

But being with Sharon was easy for him and he'd realized a long time ago that easy was the one thing he missed about every other aspect of his life.

They sat down to eat, Sharon quietly shoving food in his direction every few minutes as she spoke of light, small things. He ate swiftly, and neatly, packing away enough calories to fuel everyone in the Tower at least three times over. Except maybe Thor.

"So, I thought you weren't that hungry?" She laughed at him.

"Well, I wasn't," he mumbled around some garlic bread. "Hungry's like hot or cold or hurt or tired. It's sensation. I learned to ignore sensation back before I was even changed. I was always hurting from something; couldn't see, couldn't breathe, couldn't walk. After a while I don't notice any of it anymore. Until I start eating. This is all great by the way, thank you."

Sharon shook her head. "Every time we talk and I think I have a read on you, Rogers, you go and say something like that. And I have to figure you all out again."

He cocked his head at her. "You'd rather I was simple?"

"No." She reached across the table to stroke the back of his hand. A tiny gesture, just the tips of her fingers and he was suddenly filled with a sensation he couldn't ignore. "I'm just amazed how lucky I am that you find me interesting in return." She paused. "I mean, I think you do..."

He captured her hand before she could pull it back. "I do. You fascinate me."

"Thank you."

"See, the clowns I live with would have made a crack there. You didn't. Why?"

"Because I don't have anything to prove to you."

Steve stared at her. Right. No matter how much the Avengers cared for each other, how much of a team they were, there was always some un-subtle jockeying for position, social dominance, personal victories. Sharon just liked being around him.

As amazing and skilled and dangerous as she was, the superhero business was not Sharon's life. She could keep up with him, with them all--but chose not to. She had other passions, other goals, other dreams to follow. She knew who she was and it wasn't an Avenger. That security folded over into her relationship with him.

She was not the most physically beautiful woman he knew--Avenger consensus was that Natasha was basically a goddess in human form. She wasn't the smartest--Bobbi was roundly acknowledged by the whole community to be a high-level genius. She wasn't the best fighter or the best shot. She was just the best person for him, because once he told her how he felt about her she just...accepted it with calm faith and reciprocated the feelings.

They'd bickered more than once, usually about abstracts. But they'd never fought they way he'd fought with all the other Avengers at least once. It was such a relief.

Steve put his fork down on his plate and stood up, drawing her to her feet. She smiled at him, shy and sweet. 

"Can I brush my teeth?" She asked.

"Take the main; I'll use the spare bathroom," he responded, then pulled her in for another kiss. They both tasted of tomato sauce and garlic, basil and oregano and salt. It was just as sweet as their first kiss that night, despite it all.

She was lounging under the crisp clean sheets when he strode into the bedroom, flicking off the lights as he went.

"One," she laughed. "Leave me one dim one. I don't have your eye sight."

He grinned, shedding his shirt and pants onto the floor. She sighed to see him and he felt that weird thrill he got, knowing that a woman as attractive and sexy as Sharon found him attractive. His mental self-image was still, after all these years, of a weedy asthmatic art-nerd.

He pulled back the sheet and slid in, revelling in the sight of her, all taut bare flesh and small firm breasts. His cheeks flushed a little.

"Oh, god," she laughed. "I will never get over you blushing when you see boobies."

"What? I told you, sensitive artist."

"Yeah," she said, sliding her hand down his flank until it rested near his groin. "Hyper sensitive. But good stamina."

"Witch," he muttered, burying his hands in her hair and pulling her into his body.

*****

Later--much, much later he did in fact have _excellent_ stamina--Steve relaxed back against the pillows. Sharon was kneeling over him, still shaking a little from the strength of her climax. They both had the same lazy half-smile on their faces.

He'd confessed to her, back when they had made their first fumbling attempt at a relationship, his big, dark secret: he was a virgin.

_No one ever wanted me before I was Captain America and after, well, I never had time. Then there was the ice and....everything was so strange when I got out._

She hadn't acted kind. She hadn't pitied him. She'd just nodded and accepted what he said and then asked him out on a date. She hadn't even hit on him. Just had dinner and gone to a movie like normal people. Then again the next time she was in the States, easing him into something like a regular relationship.

About three months later he'd been on a road trip with just Clint and somewhat desperately asked the archer for pointers, making the same confession (1). Clint--bless him--had gone into mission mode instantly, with no mockery or sarcasm. _"I'll drive, you need to take notes."_

It had been an illuminating trip.  
And when he and Sharon had finally shared a bed, he'd surprised her. She'd said as much. He'd never admitted it was because he was repeating Clint's forthright, slightly obscene instructions in his head at every step.

Thinking about Clint led him to thinking about Bobbi as Sharon sighed down onto the extra firm mattress next to him.

"Can I ask you something about when you were in Shield?" 

"Sure," she said with a contented little head butt into his armpit.

"Did you know the Specials crew well? Hawkeye and Widow and Mockingbird, I mean."

Sharon rolled over and looked at the ceiling. "No, not really. But no one knew them; they were black ops, wet work. The solos, who went out without supervision or oversight. They kept to themselves and in Mockingbird's case Fury kept her away from the rest of us even more. Wasn't till much later I realized it was because he was scared of her."

Steve shifted around and looked down at her. "Scared?"

"Yes, I mean, you know her. You know how determined and calculating and brilliant she is. Fury was terrified of her trying to take over, I think."

"He didn't know her well then. I don't think she's ever wanted to lead," Steve said with a head shake.

"I agree, now. But at the time I barely knew her. Hawkeye and Black Widow, they were a little more sociable; Fury's rockstars. They were friendly enough on the decks and the mess. But then you'd see them come in from some weeks long mission, cut to pieces, broken inside their heads, eyes like pits of hell, having to be held down--literally held down, I helped more than once--to keep them from charging back out into the field. I figured out then I didn't want to live like that."

Steve kissed her forehead, giving silent thanks for that. She continued.

"I worked with Mockingbird once, on something so hush hush it was never explained at all. We were pretending to be sisters in the Outback. Watching her work was revelatory; she just melted into whatever she needed to be, moment to moment, breath to breath. Smart as a whip, so damn funny--that dry wit, you know--and the most deliberate person I'd ever met. During the mission never said a word, never made a gesture that wasn't on point, of use. Nothing wasted, nothing missed. Like a machine except machines glitch, break down. She never made a mistake on an op that I knew of."

And there is was, the key he'd been looking for, the answer to the question he didn't know to ask.

Steve rolled over on top of Sharon and kissed her passionately. "Thank you. Thank you so much."

"What?"

"I know what she was talking about, out there. She said three really strange things--I figured it was the stimulants she was taking but you're so darn right. Deliberate is her watchword."

Sharon shoved him a little. He sat up, the sheet pooling around his thighs, caressing his perfect abs and chest.

"What did she say?" 

"She told Fitz Simmons that the town was a 'tripwire'. Not trap, 'tripwire'--which is a pretty specific term, right? Then later she said two things one after the other. _'If you treat him like a monster, that's what he'll become'_ and _'Do the math.'_."

"Do the math?"

"Yeah. I think I just got what she meant, because of what you said. Excuse me."

Steve rolled over and touched the call button on his bedside console. "Jarvis, is Colonel Danvers awake?"

"She is, sir. Shall I connect you?"

"Please."

"Yeah, Cap? You need me?" Danvers said through the speaker.

"Carol, do you still have a way to contact _him_?" Steve asked.

"Him? Oh, yeah. You want--"

"I think so. If he'll come."

"I tell him his dad's involved, he'll come."

"Please."

"Sure thing. I'll get back to you when I know one way or the other." 

Steve paused for a moment when the line cut out, his eyes remote and calculating. "I'll need Tony and maybe Bruce so can't do much until the surgery is over. But then--"

"Then what, neighbour?" Sharon asked, indulgent and interested.

"We need to take a closer look at Mockingbird's staff and Wolverine's blood, plus the raw data from her HUD. I think we're going to find something physically off, as well as the obvious evidence he was mentally fighting not to kill her."

"Oh, do the math! Right!" Sharon exclaimed. "She would have been concerned someone was listening in."

"And if we find what I think we're going to find, I'll know who laid down the 'tripwire' for, well, whomever showed up in Salem first."

Steve turned back to her, cupping her face with his big hands, their long sensitive artist's fingers stroking her cheeks. "But we have some time here, I think. And you deserve a nice--"

He leaned in to kiss her, letting his tongue dart out and touch her lips, feeling them open under his touch.

"A nice, big thank you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) I think this road trip will get its own story.


	4. Swordspoint

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The deep breath before the final phrase of the song.

"Clint." Steve said from the door way of the room. He was leaning against the doorjamb, next to a brass plaque declaring this to be "Bobbi's Recovery Room" in beautiful calligraphy. That plaque had been the cause of a six month cold war between Bobbi and Tony when--after her third traumatic surgery in four years--Tony pointed out she seemed to spend more time in hospital beds than the rest of the team combined. He had the plaque made and bolted to the wall. She'd removed it. He'd replaced it. She'd defaced it. He'd put an alarm on the new one.

It had eventually devolved into ambushes, the use of mild electrical currents, chemical solvents and elaborate traps.  
   
When two geniuses with access to advanced technology engage in pranks, the slippery slope gets very steep very quickly.  
   
Steve-- genuinely frightened they might hurt each other by accident-- had eventually hauled them both in and negotiated a detente between them. The plaque stayed and Bobbi got the deed to the mountain 'cabin' she and Clint had used for a vacation once.  
   
The archer looked up from his wife's bedside and actually smiled. "You look okay. Food and good...(wink wink)...company makes you almost human."  
   
"So, she's better then?" Steve advanced into the room and took the other chair.  
   
"Yeah," Clint said, looking back at Bobbi. Her skin was pale beyond pale, almost waxen, but her hair had been brushed neatly and she was breathing slowly and steadily. The bones of her jaw and cheeks stood out in sharp relief; her face was regal, strong, almost remote in such total repose. She didn't have Natasha's classic beauty or Sharon's warm softness but she was so utterly _herself_ that nothing else mattered . A double IV of blood was hooked to one arm . Clint had the other hand in both of his, stroking her palm with his fingers. "The surgeon and Bruce said everything's stitched back in place. She's going to be on an IV feed for a while and we're going to have to watch her like--heh--hawks to prevent her from reopening anything. But she's...okay." 

Steve studied him sideways for a bit. Under his fatigue and concern, Clint exuded a fierce pride. Of course, his 'little bird' as only he was allowed to call her had fought Wolverine one on one--and lived. No matter if Logan had been pulling his punches there weren't more than a handful of people who could say that. 

Frankly, he felt it himself. His 'sister' was--what was the term she'd used after that thing with the ninjas in Hell's Kitchen?--'One bad ass alpha bitch'. 

"Why her?" Clint asked quietly. "I'm not being rhetorical Steve, why is it always her in the hospital bed? Why isn't it me?" 

Steve opened one hand to the air. "Logistics, Clint. You're my sniper and by definition that's mostly going to put you at a distance from the hand to hand stuff. Iron Man, Falcon, same thing. Hulk and Thor don't even figure.  Myself, Widow, Mockingbird? We're the front line, close combat ground fighters. And if you look at the stats it's Mock and I who spend the most time being patched up. Widow's not as suited as we are to wading in and taking hits. Colder, more calculating, more cautious. But Bobbi should have been one of the Howling Commandos. She's my right hand shield, Clint, for when I can't use the left." 

Clint shook his head, his eyes bright. "That's...if we released a record of you saying that the internet would go nuts." 

Steve sat back in his chair. "I can imagine. Remember the time I told that reporter not to call them 'the girls' and that weirdo 'men's rights' guy started calling me a 'cuck' and threatening us? Whatever happened to him?" 

"Uh, you might not want me to answer that. Nat and Bobbi dealt with it." Clint said in a mild voice. 

"They didn't do anything illegal, did they?" Steve asked him worriedly. 

"Not...technically, no. He decided to delete all his social media and move to the outback all on his own." 

Steve shook his head. "Yeah, well, no loss. But I mean what I said. She takes these hits for me--for the team--because she wants to and she can. I trust her to hold up her end of any fight. But that puts in harms way and then...this." 

"I'm proud of her for it. I'd never try to stop her from doing what she has to.  But every ounce of upbringing and history I've had beaten into me, everything I've been  told about being a husband and a fighter and, hell, _a man_ says it's wrong. That I'm failing in my duty, not protecting her, not being strong enough, good enough. I should be the one bleeding out in the snow, not her. Not my wife. Not my little bird." 

They both looked at Mockingbird, so tall and strong and yet so fragile. She was--inevitably, inexorably--weaker than them both in terms of pure physical power. That was the unfair, unbalanced gift of testosterone. 

Steve sighed. "I know. I know exactly what you mean. I can't help, even now, getting this little knee-jerk protective streak whenever they put themselves in harm's way. Widow, Mockingbird, Hill, Sharon. I had it with Peggy too. This nagging thought that somehow I'm letting the side down by putting women in danger. And I know it shows, because I've heard myself hesitate before sending them into something. " 

"If it makes you feel better, they all think it's cute. I've heard them joking about it." Clint said with a reassuring smile.

Steve jerked his hands in the air, balling them into fists, his rarely displayed anger suddenly snapping around him like an aura. "It's not _cute_ Clint. It's god damn toxic. What right do you--do I--does anyone on this planet have to judge any of these...these...goddesses as lesser than we are? After everything they've done, everything they've survived and achieved somehow the shape of their--" HIs vocabulary failed him but Clint clearly understood. He nodded along, his hand on Bobbi's clutching a little harder. Steve continued, his voice low and intense. "Some how that's what matters? Would anyone dare critique how _my_ hair looks after a fight? It wouldn't even occur to them."

He leaned over and touched Bobbi's face with his right hand, his powerful fingers as gentle as a butterfly's wings. 

"She's saved my life, your life, the lives of everyone in this city, the lives of everyone on this planet and they _still_ introduce her as your wife more often that not. As though she only exists as an extension of you. She fought Wolverine to save Fitz Simmons. She fought Wolverine--" Steve's voice broke just a little. "She fought Wolverine and the whole time she was trying to _save him_ too. He was trying to kill her horribly and she was trying to save him. This is a hero, Clint. This is my sister and my friend and my soldier and she deserves better from me than some stupid protective macho...bullshit."

"Holy cow," Clint breathed. "Tell me how you really feel."

Steve managed a weak smile. "It's just been weighing on me. Since Sharon showed up. I fight not to get all goofy and 1930's and Tarzan when she's around. It's moronic. She's her own person, she doesn't need me to tell her anything, to do anything for her, to protect her from anything. It's about five thousand times more moronic with Bobbi and Natasha."

"You...you're stronger than me. You protect me. How is that different?" Clint asked slowly. There was weight behind his words. The archer played the fool so much and so well that only the other Avengers were really aware of the sharp, deadly mind behind those laughing blue eyes.

"If I ever protect you--or Tony, or Sam or anyone else--it's as an equal, a fellow warrior. I have your back when you need me and then I move on. When we--even you and I who've seen more of what these women can endure and become than anyone else--when we talk about protecting them it's not as people. It's as...things. Children. Pets." He finished bitterly.

Clint nodded. "Yeah. I was wondering if you saw that." He looked away. "When she told me...without saying it out loud...that she'd been raped the only thing I'm proud of in my reaction is that I never let her see how...offended I was. She was _mine_ you see. My little bird. My wife. Which is one step from...my property. Her trauma wasn't something that had been robbed from _me_. I didn't own any of her pain. My only fucking job was to make it _not matter_. I think...I've succeeded."

"I think you have too," Steve replied earnestly.

Clint laughed. "She said something to me about you, when I was pissed off about some judge-y crap you'd thrown at me. She said 'A jury of your peers can be one person, if that person has enough weight behind them. Steve's the elephant in the room and we all know it.' Your opinion of her matters to her. Tell her what you just told me, when she wakes up. She'll let you know what we can do about it."

Steve shook his head, visibly moved. His phone beeped in his pocket. "That's my cue. We have a team meeting coming, Jarvis is going to remote you in from here, okay?"

"Thanks," Clint said softly. He turned his eyes back to Bobbi, both his hands on hers.

 

*****

The boardroom was more subdued than normal without the boisterous presence of the Bartons. The only commotion was coming from the unlikely candidate of Bruce Banner.

Bruce--once he'd slept after Mockingbird's surgery was complete--had proceeded to ransack her personal lab space looking for her stash of 'brew' as she called it. When that had failed he'd taken to dogging Natasha's footsteps, a constant quiet shadow demanding that she tell him where it was hidden. Natasha had twice been held back by Thor from stabbing him in the last day. 

He'd kept asking and he was asking again, now, when Steve and Sharon walked in.

"That stuff will _kill_ one of you, Nat. It's evil. She's evil for making it. You have to tell me," Bruce insisted sincerely. Natasha pressed her hands to the table top, her eyes wild as the Siberian tundra. She was clearly about to make a hole in the wall and defenestrate him.

"Butts in chairs, Romanoff, Banner. And Bruce? I get your point and when she wakes up I'm going to talk to her about it. But that evil stuff that's going to kill her actually saved her life. So just give it a rest at the moment. Before we find out if a Black Widow can hurt a Hulk."

Bruce slouched into his seat to the intense relief of Natasha and the intense disappointment of Sam and Tony. A twenty changed hands to the billionaire. Sharon some what tentatively took Hawkeye's chair. Captain Marvel was sitting next to Thor, a small grin on her face. Fitz Simmons, both looking pale and sick, sat at their desk on the back wall. They'd been offered seats at table ages ago and delicately refused them.The main screen was spilt in two, half showing Hawkeye, Bobbi's hand still in his and the other half black.

Steve paced at the front of the table. "I've spent the last couple of days considering what we're going to do about the disappearance of the X-Men and the people of North Salem Centre. Agent Carter helped me understand some of the clues that Mockingbird dropped during her fight with Wolverine. Doctor Banner and Iron Man have isolated several things from both Wolverine's blood left on her staff and the data feeds from her HUD. We're going to be joined by someone else here remotely in a moment but I wanted to explain what I've deduced before then."

Steve gestured at the monitor on the other wall and three separate audio tracks appeared. The first one played automatically.

_Mockingbird: We didn't walk into a town, Fitz Simmons. We walked into a tripwire._

"Most of you haven't heard that--it was before she went to emergency broadcast mode but since her HUD was on it was recorded. It's an odd phrase and it was bothering me--then Agent Carter pointed out that Mockingbird does not say things idly on missions. Most people know the conventional meaning of the work 'tripwire'. There's another, purely military definition."

Carol Danvers straightened up, nodding. "Right, right I think I see--" Sam Wilson was right behind her.

Stark snorted. "So, spill it, Capsicle."

"A tripwire is a comparatively weak force employed as a first line of defence. When engaged, it triggers the intervention of stronger forces," Captain America explained.

"In what universe is Wolverine a 'weak force'?" Asked Bruce.

"In a universe where we can throw Hulk, Thor, Iron Man and Captain Marvel at him. That would have been what our unseen enemy expected us to do. Delay accidentally became our best strategy. They withdrew Logan in confusion back to their lair when we didn't show up and turn him into a grease stain"

"Hold," rumbled Thor. "How would they have known we would be the first to encounter the empty town and Wolverine?"

"If you want to control the X-Men, who do you need to suborn?" Captain America responded socratically. 

"Xavier," said Natasha. "And he knew Mockingbird was coming to visit." 

"Right. So, that becomes our second data point in all this. Whatever caused this situation is something that can control or neutralize the most powerful telepath on the planet. MI-13--through Psylocke, thank you FitzSimmons--confirmed that none of the hostile psionics are on play here. None are even on the continent. So that rules out the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants among others. Jarvis, the rest please."

The next two clips played, one after the other.

_Mockingbird: If you treat him like a monster that's what he'll become._

_Mockingbird: Do the math._

Steve turned to Bruce. "Doctor Banner, what did you find in the blood on Mockingbird's staff?"

Bruce looked around the table. "It's homo sapien superior, with the X-factor pretty clearly. There was some kind of degraded animal DNA contaminant that I don't recognize--"

"It's not animal," said a woman's voice from the blacked out side of the screen. The view clicked on to show a woman with dark green hair and mirrored sunglasses standing in a room filled with high tech equipment. The windows behind her very clearly showed the earth from high orbit. The great scar of the Mongolian desert creased the view, behind swirling white clouds. 

"Avengers, let me introduce you to Agent Abigail Brand, head of the former SHIELD off shoot, now its own entity, SWORD. She is currently stationed to their orbital base called the Peak. Colonel Danvers, thank you for acting as my liaison with the organization," Steve said.

"SWORD?" Said Falcon.

"Sentient World Observation and Response Department," the green-haired woman supplied.

"At least the destruction of SHIELD has ended this reign of acronym terror," Black Widow said dryly. 

"You..hunt aliens?" Hawkeye ventured.

"We _monitor_ them on Terra and track Terrans who are off world," Brand corrected him.

"There are Terrans off world?" said Simmons weakly from the back.

"There are aliens on Earth?" Countered Fitz.

Steve waved them all quiet. Brand continued.

"I've looked at the data your Jarvis mainframe sent us, Captain. It's pretty clearly alien. It's Brood, in fact." At the confused expressions she touched something on her desk and a holographic image appeared over her face.

As one, the room recoiled from the creature. It was vaguely insectoid, with elongated limbs and digits and a huge underslung muzzle filled with knife like fangs. It appeared to stand up on its hind legs, brandishing thin arms ending in wicked claws. Its skull extended backwards into two forked points. It had a tail that lashed like a whip. 

"Holy shit," yelped Falcon.

"Allfather have mercy," rumbled Thor in counterpoint. 

"Agent Brand, tell them what you told me about how the Brood reproduce," Steve said, sitting down next to Sharon and touching her hand for a moment.

"They're like spider wasps. The queen of a particular colony lays her eggs in the bodies of other creatures--they prefer sentient species. While growing the Broodlings tap directly into the brains of their hosts, controlling their thoughts and reactions, accessing their memories. Eventually the Broodlings consume the host alive from within and take on their physical characteristics--the process is accelerated by stress and physical exertion by the host."

"If you treat him like a monster--by fighting him--that's what he'll become," quoted Falcon, nodding slowly.

"Exactly, " Brand continued. "Each daughter colony--and there are many--is ruled by the single Queen who in turn is slaved telepathically to the Queen Mother, on the Brood homeworld. Which, if we ever find it, I will personally see turned to radioactive ash."

"I think that's called genocide, Agent Brand," Bruce said uncomfortably. 

"The entire species has been convicted for multiple mass murders numbering in the thousands of cases, under the legal systems of every known galactic civilization. They are literally pure evil, Doctor Banner." She looked off to one side of her camera pickup, made a gesture at someone out of frame. "In any case, this is the first known instance of them in the neighbourhood of Sol or Terra and there is no evidence of them travelling here using their usual means. We would not have missed a space whale showing up in Terran orbit."

"Space? Whale?" Tony whispered. "What is even happening right now?"

"How they got here is a mystery I'm working on solving. The extraneous DNA in Wolverine's blood is definitely fetal Brood--Mockingbird stabbed him directly through the amniotic sac containing the Broodling, obviously intentionally. She may have mortally wounded it, which would be another reason Wolverine was withdrawn back to the Queen. So she could re-implant him before she lost control of his mind."

"Hold up! Hold up!" Banner said, growing increasingly agitated. "How the hell would Bobbi know to do that? Or what a Brood was? Or drop hints to Steve about any of it?"

Brand cocked her head at him. "Doctor Morse-Barton has been our consulting xenobiochemist since she joined the Avengers, Doctor Banner. You know how hard it is to recruit high-level staff with hyper top secret security clearance who don't start screaming when we explain the whole 'so, aliens are real' thing? And she said she couldn't do it unless she had Captain America's approval and oversight so..." 

Everyone looked at Steve, who had a sheepish grin on his face. "Yeah, I knew about it. She gives me briefings about what she's learned about the general situation every quarter or so."

Hawkeye looked at his wife's prone form. "Oh, I'm just going to talk to a sub committee upstairs!" He said in a passable imitation of Mockingbird's voice. "I thought she meant at the Pentagon or the UN. Not orbit."

"To be fair Clint she told me she'd tell you the instant you actually asked her about it and you never did. She never lied to you. Technically," Steve said. 

"Steve, shut up," Sharon murmured at him lovingly. He subsided with an embarrassed look.

"The 'do the math' comment is pretty straight forward once you know Wolverine is infected," Brand continued. 

Stark shook himself like a dog. "Yeah, right, sorry--I did a comparison against every shred of data we have about Logan and his limitations and he was moving, reacting a minimum of thirty percent slower than normal."

"That would be a combination of him fighting the mind control and the Broodling's interference with his central nervous system. If they have infected the other X-Men they will have access to their powers but at a much reduced and inexpert level. For a few more days at least. If you can get to them and destroy the Broodlings infecting them any humans or mutants afflicted should be able to recover." Brand said. "After maybe--four days? Five?--there won't be enough left of the original hosts to save."

Steve stood up again. "So, we have to go after them and we have to do it as fast as possible. Agent Brand will continue to monitor the situation from the Peak and I fervently hope SWORD does not have to intervene."

Brand's lips thinned. "Protocol for a Brood infection to is to quarantine and cleanse the site with extreme prejudice. It's only because Captain Rogers is who he is that I'm holding off on that order. So, please don't prove me wrong. Brand out." Her feed snapped off abruptly.

As the split screen cleared to showing only Hawkeye and Mockingbird, Steve opened his mouth again.

Before he could speak, a soft weak voice drifted through the sound system from the display. "For fuck's sake I get stabbed through the chest and I _still_ have to come to the meetings?" 

Hawkeye leapt to his feet, turning to look down at Mockingbird. Her eyes were open and a weak smile creased her pale lips. "Brand's gone right? She scares me."

A wave of emotion went down the table in the main room. Relief, happiness, amusement--in Banner's case, exasperation. Natasha leaned back, her shoulders coming down from around her ears for the first time in a day. Tony and Sam laughed out loud, then Tony passed the twenty back to the ex-pararescue pilot. Thor grinned broadly and slapped the table top. Carol Danvers sat up straighter, her head high. Fitz Simmons both took their first deep breaths since they'd come back to the Tower. 

Steve sat down next to Sharon and groped for her hand, his eyes bright. She clasped his fingers between her palms, her eyes wide and filled with concern for him. 

"Mockingbird, welcome back. How do you feel?" Steve said slowly and carefully.

"Like I am very safe from vampires," she retorted, then coughed. That got a laugh around the room. Clint was instantly kneeling next to her, putting a squeeze bottle straw between her lips and helping her wet her mouth, though she had to spit it out right away. The stomach wound meant nothing to eat or drink orally for a while.

While she was doing that, Captain America stood up again, his body language almost indolent he had lost so much tension out of his spine. He ran through their conclusions in a few brief sentences--everyone was struck by how much he could shortcut talking to Mockingbird, as though they shared a brain when it came to logistics. Which they did. 

She nodded all the way through. "I wasn't sure what was messing him up, to be honest. But the Brood was on the top of the list."

"Shh," muttered Hawkeye. "You're really not supposed to be talking this much. Just breathing deep could re-open something."

"Dream come true for you," she said with an eyeroll. 

"Clint's right, just...hush for a moment," Steve said gently and she subsided, already seeming drained by just those few words. 

Captain America looked around the room, including Hawkeye through the monitor. "We have a duty to contain and destroy these creatures before they can harm anyone else. And we have a duty to free our friends from their influence. Colonel Danvers, can I rely on your assistance here? We're down a team-member and we could use you."

"Of course, Cap. I'm in this fight all the way," Captain Marvel said firmly.

"Did you get a hold of--?" 

"Yes," she nodded. "He'll meet us there."

"Hawkeye, since Mockingbird is awake now can you stand to leave her? We're going to need you too."

Clint winced, looked at Bobbi. She nodded at him, her eyes narrowed. _Don't you dare leave the team in the lurch for me_ was pretty clearly the message. He looked back at Steve and nodded solemnly.

Steve looked at Sharon. "Agent Carter, can I ask you to assist in replacing Mockingbird by taking on her duties here at the Tower? I need a strat-tac liaison."

"Can I do that from her bedside? I'd like to have an expert to consult if I need to," Sharon said with a glance at Hawkeye who's face became profoundly grateful. 

Captain America nodded, his eyes happy above his habitual stern expression. "All right then, everyone suit up. Two hours." He looked around the room. "Think about what you're going to need carefully. This isn't going to be like anything, anyone we've fought before." 

He took a deep breath.

"This is going to be a cage match. The Avengers versus the X-Men." 

 

 

   
   
   
   
 


	5. Battle Royale

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So, how do you sneak up on a telepath, anyway?
> 
> Terribly sorry for the long delay. As an apology and belated birthday gift for a certain someone, please note I have also started the next story in the Mockingverse--"Invasion". 
> 
> Thanks for your patience.

The Avengers quinjet landed on the front driveway of the XMansion. The snow had hardened to a thick icy crust, smooth and unblemished. The motley group decanted themselves, all trying to look in every direction at once. The two Captains, America and Marvel, paced towards the main entrance.

“He said he would meet us here,” Captain Marvel said softly. “He refused to tell me how he was getting into the country or past the National Guard and I didn’t ask.” 

Captain America looked behind him at his team. Falcon, Captain Marvel and Thor were all shaking out their arms and shoulders, getting ready to fly. Iron Man was standing very still at the nose of the jet, his gold and crimson head tucked down in ‘talking quietly to Jarvis’ mode. Hawkeye was huddled against the metal side of the engine, his phone to his ear. Black Widow watched his back, her eyes a million miles away. Bruce Banner stood near by, his glasses off, squinting into the weak sunlight. Captain America had to fight down a sense that something was terribly wrong already. His team was truncated, amputated, incomplete without the dark blue and white of Mockingbird’s tac suit bringing up the rear. She lay in her bed back at the Tower, Sharon with her, watching every data feed they could pipe back. 

When he turned his head back, _he_ was there, standing preternaturally still in the shadows of the main door. Daken Akihiro, as he called himself, Wolverine’s son by some complicated genealogy that no one had ever dared ask either of them to explain. Despite the still freezing cold, he was shirtless and shoeless, tight black pants his only clothing. Half his muscular torso was tattooed in a complicated, hypnotic tribal swirl. He smiled when he saw they noticed him.

Captain America, who feared very little, had to force himself not to check back, start, bring his shield around in defence. The palpable reek of _predator_ was as much psychic as physical—his pheromones were already swirling in the air around them all. Steve could taste them on his tongue, desire and fear a heavy leaden mix in the back of his throat. 

Daken advanced into the light, moving with his father’s easy animal grace. He looked over Captain America’s shoulder at Hawkeye, just slipping his phone back into his jacket and turning around. 

“Hey, archer—blondie? She okay?” He was talking about Mockingbird, whom he’d had at least two run-ins with in the past. He had some strange twisted affection for her; she was profoundly terrified of him. 

“Wolverine tried to gut her, she’s not okay,” Hawkeye grated out, his face tense and his mouth set.

“She’s alive though?” At Hawkeye’s nod, Daken laughed. It was a nice laugh, sounding strangely merry from that cruel mouth. “Oh, man, I should not have let her get away. Balls on that one. Offer’s still open, I’ll take you both if you get tired of the hero business. We could have good times.”

Hawkeye’s bow was strung and in his hands in the blink of an eye and Daken still beat him to the punch. The lean man, smaller and slighter than the archer, crossed the distance between them and touched the point of one of his claws to Clint’s face, just under his right eye. A single drop of blood well up around the point of contact. 

“Play nice, Avenger. Your boss man there, _he_ called _me_.”

“Hawkeye. Leave it.” Captain America ordered sharply. Breathing hard Hawkeye took one step back, his eyes ice cold and his shoulders up around his ears. Black Widow stepped forward to place her hand on his shoulder and he shuddered at her touch but stilled. 

Captain America swept a look across his entire team that they had all long ago learned to read. _Everyone shut the hell up_.

“Daken, thank you for coming. We need to find the X-Men and the civilians from Salem Center as quickly as possible but all our technological means have failed. Can you please try to track Wolverine? We know he was last in the woods outside the mansion, just to the north of here.”

Daken eyed Steve with something like confusion. “Are you _always_ polite? “

“Mostly, yes,” Steve said.

“I—” Daken paused, his mouth working. “I do not understand you people.”

Then he turned and loped off to the north. The Avengers followed him, Captain America, Hawkeye, Black Widow and Bruce Banner on foot; Falcon, Iron Man, Thor and Captain Marvel in the air.

******

“That guy freaks me out,” Bobbi whispered, watching the live feed from Iron Man’s HUD. Sharon, sitting next to her with her brand new hyper modified Avengers-model Starktab in her lap looked up.

“I’ve read his file—that took about thirty seconds since no one knows anything about him—but you’ve what, fought him?”

Bobbi shook her head. “Fought, no. I…fucked him around once, pretty hard (1) and he’s never forgotten it. Tried to kill me three times—Hawkeye twice—and now he’s got some weird hard on for us both. But he literally makes my knees weak when I’m around him. And not in a good way.” Her blue-grey eyes flicked deliberately to the right twice and the holographic display in front of her changed, Iron Man’s HUD (now an aerial view of the snowy forest and landscape) peeled off into a split screen with the physical read-outs of all the Avengers down the left.

“Clint, get it together,” Bobbi muttered. 

Sharon shifted her chair till she could see the display herself. “That’s a high stress readout for him, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, plus-Daken-minus-me is going to mess with his head. And he’s not super pleased with the role Steve’s got for him—he really wanted to take on Wolverine.” She paused and squinted. “That sentence never gets less surreal.”

“Is that what the three of you were whispering about?”

“Yeah. Problem with fighting telepaths, gotta compartmentalize even more than usual.”

Sharon threw a side-eyed glance at Bobbi. “I can see why you’d be safe from having your mind read but what about the boys?”

Bobbi smiled at her. “Are you up to date about MI-13 and the Braddock siblings?”

“Yes. We got the same briefing in Europe that you gave to the Security Council.”

“So last year we ran a joint op with Excalibur and part of the point was to see what Psylocke could and couldn’t pick up from each of us when we weren’t actively defending. She could barely read Steve other than what she called ‘vocal surface thoughts’. Said his internal though process were so controlled and locked down it was like reading a technical manual. Kept getting lost in the syntax.”

“How…odd. I wouldn’t think of him that way.”

Bobbi turned her head and looked directly at Sharon. “I think, Agent 13, that you see a very different side of him than the rest of us do. You should cherish that.”

The view on the HUD changed, as Iron Man dropped down for a landing next to the rest of the Avengers.

****

“I didn’t fucking need to see this again,” Hawkeye hissed as they cleared the tree line into the field where Mockingbird had ended her desperate run. He turned on his heel and walked back into the trees, alone. The rest of the Avengers gathered around Daken, crouched at the edge of the irregular circle of ice, mud and dried blood marking the spot she had fallen. 

The mutant looked up at Captain America as the tall man loomed over him. 

“I smell a lot of her blood here, boss-man. I remember the scent; s weet, like candy. How is she alive?”

“Captain Marvel broke the sound barrier here and back and her suit kept enough blood in her core to keep her heart and brain alive. And he…he didn’t pop all of his claws. Only four. He was trying to save her, as she was trying to save him.”

“Sentimental,” Daken snorted. “He always had a thing for her.”

“Can you track him?”

Daken stood up, shook out his shoulders and nodded. “Yeah. He's here too, clear as day. Try to keep up.”

The flyers took to the air again, Thor carrying Bruce on his back, with Captain Marvel looking around before lifting off. “What about Hawkeye?”

Black Widow shook her head. “Try to forget he was ever here.”

Daken took off at that loping run again, being paced easily by Captain America and Black Widow.

****

“Smarty pants,” Bobbi said, then suppressed a cough. Sharon was on her feet right away, helping her take a small swallow of analgesic laced water. They couldn’t risk a coughing fit, which might re-open all her internal injuries.

“Natasha knows the plan?” Sharon asked.

Bobbi shook her head, her voice nearly a whisper again. “Natasha’s too darn smart for her own good.” 

“You all work well together. Even Stark and I believe every file I’d ever seen on him started with the words ‘not a team player’.” 

“Synergy. Gestalt. Dosen’t happen as much as people like to think; we wouldn’t exist if it didn’t happen with us. Too many big personalities.” 

Sharon nodded and started to say something, then paused as Bobbi continued.

“It’s Steve, you know. He’s the core, the heart, the glue. Without him we don’t work half as well—I mean, we’re a team now and we act like it—but when Steve’s there, all golden and blue and stern we kick up a notch. Hawkeye’s sharper, Natasha’s sneakier. Thor’s stronger, Hulk’s more controlled. Falcon’s faster, Tony’s smarter. Even I’m better and it’s hard to improve on perfection.”

Mockingbird looked at Sharon with no expression but her eyes gleamed with a wicked light. The other blond woman shook her head.

“Steve warned me about you, no tricks, Agent 19.”

“No one’s called me that in years. I sorta miss it.”

“Lucky Agent 13, here.”

“Sharon,” Bobbi said softly, her voice serious again. “When I married Clint no one here knew me. It took some big things for them to trust me. At our reception, which was twelve days after we got married, Natasha took me aside and told me…well…if I hurt Clint she’d kill me. She was his family, you see.” She paused. “Steve’s my brother.”

The words hung gently in the air, with no need for ether woman to spell it out further. Sharon reached over and patted Bobbi’s arm. “He says so himself. He really loves you.”

“He just likes having someone to play speed obstacle chess with who doesn't tap out after three moves.”

“I didn’t know he played chess,” Sharon said. “Um, what is ‘speed obstacle chess’?” 

“We’ll do an exhibition for you one of these days. We set up five boards in the gym with obstacles between them and do it at a run. Doing a queen sacrifice while Hawkeye shoots arrows close to your head is a thrill and a half. Three checkmates calls the dinner order that night.”

“It might be a while before you can do that, Mockingbird.”

Bobbi looked down at herself, laying flat in her hospital bed, memory foam moulded around her body to keep her from shifting much. “Oh, fuck. Right. Months of rehab coming. No solid food for a million years. No sex! How will I survive?”

Jarvis broke in. “Captain Rogers on the private channel for you, Mockingbird.”

“Steve, we’re here, what’s up?”

“Natasha figured it out,” Steve’s voice said grimly from the air. Sharon shifted her chair around until she was facing the same direction as Bobbi again, watching the virtual screens deliver their blinding data feeds.

“Yeah, I’m not too worried about it. She’s nearly as locked down as you are and once things ramp up she’s not going to have time to think about anything else.”

“I’m still leery about that match, Mock.”

“Yeah, so am I but she’s okay with it and well…that’s her call, not ours. Frankly, I’m more worried about Bruce.”

“Why?”

“Pure speculation that Hulk’s immune to those powers. It’s good speculation, it’s good science but…if we’re wrong he dies fast and hard.”

“Damn it,” he muttered under his breath. “I need you here, with us.”

“If I was there it’d be too easy. Camo on and stroll right up to them.”

“Yes, because Xavier wouldn’t sense you and Wolverine wouldn’t smell you and Cyclops wouldn’t have thought of that.” 

"Stop bringing logic into this, Steven." Bobbi swallowed, laboriously. "Just watch out for Daken. I don't care what he tells you he'll do, when he sees Wolverine he'll be out for blood."

"And I thought Thor had daddy issues," Steve said dryly.

"Did...did he just make a joke?" Sharon asked in a faint voice.

"I'm a bad influence on him," Bobbi reassured her. "Tell Iron Man to watch his power level. Storm can short him right out if she tries, she can sustain the lightning even longer than Thor. Captain Marvel can handle..."

*****

Daken lead them all to the north and east, through woods, over fields, past scattered farmsteads and into an area of brush, trees and a high ridge near the state border. He circled a clearing a few times, seemed to triangulate a direction and pointed towards a sheer hill, not very high but steep. 

"There, boss man," he said as Captain America entered the clearing.

Steve and Natasha--neither breathing hard--pulled up next to him. Steve looked up and waved Iron Man in the direction Daken indicated as the rest of the flyers landed next to him.

Bruce, hopping off of Thor's back, began his pre-Hulk fidget: Take glasses off, put back on. Unbutton shirt a few inches. Tuck glasses into pocket, take them out, put them back on. Button shirt back up.

Iron Man was back before he could start the routine again. He landed with a thud in the snow and immediately threw a holographic schematic of the unbroken ridge into the air in front of him.

"To my eyes--even to the scanners--it looks like a normal hillside, right? But this is the topographical map of the area..." 

The two images merged, the new one showing a large gash in the side of the hill, leading to a huge quarry, more than a football field long and wide. 

"Holos? Or Xavier messing with our heads?" Falcon asked.

"Both I think. It's fooling all the systems and the naked eye. I can take down the projectors from here, Jarvis has the frequency now, but that's a big 'Hi there guys!'." 

"Which is what we want," Captain America said. "Rest of you, in the air on my mark. Iron Man take Daken. Carol, you have Natasha, I'm coming in on foot. Remember who you're supposed to pull out of the pack but I think this is going to be a...fluid situation."

Daken hadn't been paying attention, his focus outwards, towards the trees to their left. He squinted then looked back at Captain America suspiciously. "You want me to take a ride?"

"Yes. I want to drop the hammer on them all at once, in Thor's case literally. If you're okay with it?"

"Sure. Sounds like fun."

"Ready, Cap," said Tony.

Bruce, his face glum, had finished taking off his shirt, glasses, and shoes, tucking them all into a bag that Natasha hung from a nearby tree. He stood for a moment, dark and small and shivering. Then he sighed...and something blossomed in his gentle, kind eyes. A flash of green, like an explosion, spreading across the white, turning it emerald, then traveling down, passing into his veins. His thin, wiry form ballooned, in one smooth surge like a time lapse video of a mushroom cloud. 

Hulk, breathing hard, grinned at them.

"Well, hell," Captain Marvel exclaimed. Even Daken sheered back for an instant. The rest of the team just nodded at their own personal weapon of mass destruction, any fear masked and buried by the years of watching him save lives rather than destroy them. 

"Up and away. Kick the ant hill, Iron Man."

Falcon, Captain Marvel, and Iron Man all surged into the air, the two passengers riding on the flyer's backs. Tony paused, hovering and made a sharp gesture with his hands.

On the hillside, there was a flash of light...and a sudden opening in the smooth forested top. 

Instantly two women rose into the air above the ridge. One was a powerful looking African-American woman, dressed in black with a cape like wings attached to her wrists and neck. She had a mohawk swathe of white hair and even from the distance she breathed a regal presence, as though she was a queen enthroned. 

The other was average build, dressed in green with long gloves and a hood over her face. The hood fell back to reveal red-brown hair with a white swatch running through it.

Storm and Rogue. They were in the right place.

Storm raised her hands into the air, which began to darken, clouds boiling from nothing, threatening a blizzard, thunder, lightening.

"Hooooo!" Yelled the actual God of Thunder, throwing Mjolnir in her direction with joyful abandon. Falcon was close behind, aiming for Rogue. Captain Marvel with Black Widow and Iron Man spun to one side, heading for the opening. Captain America charged into the trees, towards the break in the wall of the hill. Hulk gathered himself and leapt, dropping down into the centre of the new open space in one bound.

Of Hawkeye, there was no sign.

Iron Man did a pass over the quarry and on his second run Daken stood up in his back, as though he was a surf board, and dove headlong into the open air, claws extended.

"Must be nice not to have to worry about broken bones," Black Widow called into the com.

Iron Man responded with a curse, jerking out of the way of a beam of red light erupting from the quarry. As one, all of the rest of the Avengers yelled "Language!".

Captain America's bitter sigh was eloquent.

*****

"He screamed that at Tony during a battle awhile back and no one has ever let him forget it," Bobbi explained to a grinning Sharon. 

"Understandable. He's--"

"Uptight? Straight laced? Tight assed?" Bobbi supplied.

"Excessively polite," Sharon said primly. 

Bobbi gestured at the screens with her eyes and another channel opened up in the audio relay. "Leo, are the dwarves in position?"

Fitz's voice was strong and steady. As badly upset as he and Simmons had been by the attack in Salem, he was at his best when he was at the controls of his tech.

"Indeed. Shall I tap you in?"

"Yeah, I need to see what Hulk and...Daken are doing." Bobbi grimaced. "Someday I'm going to be able to say his name without flinching."

 

*****

Captain America made it to the edge of the opening in the quarry wall just as Daken hit the ground and rolled, bouncing to his feet as though made of rubber and darting out of Steve's sight to the left. So he assumed Wolverine was in that direction.

Over head the incipient mutant-caused blizzard had been arrested by Thor's arrival as he cast his lightning at Storm with joyful abandon. She responded with lightning of her own, the sky lit in flash bright as strobes.

Falcon had engaged with Rogue, enticing her into a cat and mouse chase through the higher air, above the battle of the Thunder God and the weather witch. They were equally matched in manoeuvrability but she had the edge on turning radius and sheer strength. Falcon was faster over short distances and...well..not being mind-controlled by an alien parasite. Rogue had stripped off one glove and was trying to catch his bare skin against hers, intent on stealing whatever powers he had. That alone convinced Captain America the Brood were not in full control of the X Men or their memories. 

They'd sent Falcon against Rogue because he had no powers to steal.

In the quarry, Hulk roared and there was an almighty clash of body against body, metal hitting flesh. Colossus had entered the fray. Behind him, in the weird shadows cast by the weak winter sun combined with the light show being thrown by Thor and Storm a small figure in dark blue darted back and forth.

Shadowcat--Kitty Pryde, who could phase through matter. The most dangerous enemy they faced right now, if the science bros speculation had been incorrect.

Captain Marvel landed next to him, dropping Black Widow as she did. They all exchanged a look and Captain Marvel lifted off again, hunting for Cyclops, who was still shooting his eye beams at Iron Man from some concealed position. Black Widow turned and ran straight for the two struggling behemoths in the center of the space.

Captain America went looking for the people of Salem. 

*****

Bobbi was scanning the feeds from the mini-drones (called the dwarves by Fitz, who'd invented and built them) hovering around the fight. Her eyes were flashing rapidly from image to image, flick flick flick like an automatic camera. 

"This is very confusing," Sharon said, peering at the screens in befuddlement. "I'm amazed you can keep it all straight."

"I can't. I can only retain impressions and surface info. Stark can data mine this level of feed in real time, his brain is frighteningly fast. Falcon's about comparable with me."

"I'd guess Hawkeye would be next, then."

Bobbi laughed. "No, Clint's awful with HUD's. He fixates; it's a sniper thing. Natasha's...okay. Bruce is terrible. Steve's...hmmm...it's not his strong suit but he can at least watch multiple streams without barfing."

Suddenly her eyes flew all the way open and she switched open the com channel. "Cap, right, right, see? See?"

*****

Captain America looked to the right and saw am adjacent quarry open off the main space. It was lined with the prone, fully clothed bodies of several hundred people, their eyes closed. Each of them had their hands folded over their torsos...right on top of a pulsating bulge nestled under their ribcages. He sprinted over and checked them all, counting swiftly. 

"This is all of them," he said. "All the citizens accounted for."

One of the dwarves swooped low. In his ear, Bobbi spoke. 

"Confirmed, Brood infection. It's...oh thank Odin...it's a day less advanced than we thought. We can still save them if we can kill the Queen."

Captain America opened his mouth to say something...

And fell to his knees as a wave of pain and fear washed over him like a bucket of ice water. In the back of his head he heard a sibilant hissing, slurred words that were almost English. Then clearly:

_Destroy this place._

Steve snarled, tasting metal from a hastily bitten lip. He slammed his hand down into the dirt, feeling the knuckles crack against stone. On his arm, his shield hung as a comforting, familiar weight. The pain grew worse, like acid being dripped down his spinal column. The fear was a living thing in his chest, a rat clawing and biting to get out, get away. Behind it all he tasted despair and helpless rage.

Those he knew, from a childhood of never having enough of anything: love, money, comfort, food, space, freedom. The very breath in his chest his enemy, when his asthma hit. His limbs weak and trembling, his joints aching to the touch. The mental agony of seeing injustice all around and not being able to fight it.

The pain alone would have broken a lesser man. The emotional tide would have driven most people to madness in a heartbeat. 

Captain America spit a mouthful of blood and saliva into the dirt and rose to his feet.

"Mock, did any of the others falter just then?"

"No. Xavier?"

"Yes. Hit me with what we expected but there's enough of him left to communicate. Must be near by."

*****

"That's why Steve's going after the Professor," Bobbi told Sharon softly. "The most powerful telepath in the world vs the diamond-hard will of Captain America. My bet's on Cap."

Sharon stared at the image of her lover standing tall amidst chaos and horror, his pale face stern and proud, and felt a shiver of emotion so profound she couldn't put a name to it. Mockingbird must have seen the look in her eyes.

"No one who sees stuff like this ever asks anymore why we'd all throw ourselves in front of a bullet for him, tap dance on a tight rope over a bottomless pit, slow dance in the fires of hell. Cause if Steve asked, it would be for a good reason. No one gets what it means to people like us, drunks, killers, loners and the lost that the best human who ever lived _trusts us_."

Her eyes went sideways and found one small readout in the corner of the right hand display, unlabeled. Her mouth quirked into a smile for a heartbeat.

*****

Captain Marvel brutally suppressed her desire to soar up and join Falcon in fighting Rogue. The power-thief mutant and she had some big bad history--Rogue could only fly because she had stolen those power from Carol, draining her almost to death back when the mutant had been part of Mystique's evil team. The combination of Captain Marvel's energy absorption and Rogue's power transference had some unusual side-effects: the powers had become permanent, meaning Rogue could then fly unaided and had Captain Marvel's strength and speed.

But Carol Danvers was a soldier first and her commander--Captain America--had assigned her elsewhere. Someday, there would be a reckoning. Just not today.

Instead she found Iron Man where he was dodging and spinning in the air, avoiding the short sharp blasts of crimson energy that Cyclops was shooting at him from the ground. Just as Captain Marvel joined him, a beam clipped his left shoulder, sending him out of control for a moment. She interposed herself between the next blast and his suit. It struck her with physical force but she could handle that. The energy itself washed over her, soaking into the alien power that infused her very DNA now. She felt a burst of strength under a wave of sharp pain like ripping off a hang nail.

"Go, Stark. I've got this."

Iron Man shot straight up, towards the big aerial battle overhead.

Captain Marvel grinned and turned towards the fleet, blue-suited form of Scott Summers, just popping up from behind a rock. His hand came up, snapped the control on his visor down and a beam of searing power cut through the air towards her. 

She slammed her hands together and dove down, straight into the wave of crimson.

*****

Black Widow dodged sideways away from Hulk and Colossus' heaving forms, her head on a swivel, terrified she might be ambushed by Shadowcat. Kitty Pryde could phase through solid matter and bring other objects with her. Which meant if she wanted too--or the alien monster growing in her abdomen wanted to--she could stick her hand right through a human torso and solidify it. Instant death.

She needed to engage with her opponent but Hulk was hogging him. 

Best to get both their attentions then.

She turned towards the two 'tanks' -- the powerhouse damage sponges on each team, the front line demolition crew. Each of them could level a city block with ease and both had punched Thor unconscious during sparring. They were less people in their fighting forms than forces of nature.

Black Widow gathered herself and danced between them.

Literally danced, pirouetting her slight form almost en pointe into a brief space they had just made. Years ago they had figured out that Hulk tracked small, smooth motions intently. He was like an elephant watching out for a mouse. 

So his eyes went down towards her and there was flash of knowledge. He--or Bruce deep inside his head--remembered what it was he was _supposed_ to be doing. 

Colossus punched him and rather than resisting, Hulk let it spin him around and he bounded away, towards an even smaller form that had just run through a large boulder towards them all.

Black Widow faced off against Piotr Rasputin, the Colossus and bowed to him.

"Comrade. Come--partner with me," she said in smooth aristocratic Russian. A ripple of emotion crossed the living metal of Colossus' face and he responded by throwing a huge overhand punch. If it landed, it would literally turn her to pulp. 

She flowed out of the path of the punch, so that it struck the ground, his fist driving itself to the wrist into the rock and dirt. Black Widow performed a perfect _brisé_ , her feet switching from fifth to a flying sideways leap and landing back in fifth on the broad slope of his forearm. 

She ran up his limb until she reached his back, her poise and balance unaffected by his sudden flailing attempts to reach back and rip her head off. 

*****

Hulk and Shadowcat faced off in a space littered with small pits, created by rain and wind. He lumbered after the tiny form that eluded him, his mouth slightly open, his face scrunched up with effort. 

The young mutant--little more than a child but still a full X-Man--turned at bay against a line of boulders and charged straight for the massive Avenger. She had been trained by Wolverine; she was not one to back down.

Hulk howled and swatted at her, his open palms coming together and creating a shockwave in the air that could blow over a locomotive.

She ran right through it, and then right through him, her ghostly form phasing into insubstantial molecules as she passed. He spun, still howling. She had stopped instantly, become solid for a moment as she turned--then her hand snapped out in a bladed spear, aiming for his chest.

*****

"Oh, shit," Mockingbird whispered. "Here's where the theory meets the road."  
"What if you were all wrong?" Sharon asked, leaning forward. She had absorbed Mockingbird's increasing fear and excitement, until she was on the edge of her seat .

"Then we find out once and for all if the Hulk can be killed by anything less than decapitation or disintegration. We've never been sure." Her blue-grey eyes narrowed. "Damnit Bruce, don't be wrong about this today of all days."

*****

Captain America barely dodged the tumbling forms of Daken and Wolverine, locked in brutal combat as they fell off the top of side wall into his path. He was hit in the face with a spray of blood that could have been from either of them.. 

Father and son both had their claws out, metal against bone, slashing and stabbing like insane duelists, like swordsmen possessed by the Tasmanian Devil, like wrestlers with razors strapped to their fingers. Flesh was opened in wide rents that healed as he watched.

There was nothing of themselves left in either of them: Daken was pure beast, feral rage personified, screaming and spitting as he sought to rip his own father to shreds. And Logan no longer looked totally human. His bared teeth were distinctly needle like, his eyes shimmering insect orbs. His bare skin was a sickening amalgamation of hair, flesh and thick greyish carapace. 

The Brood inside of him was ascendant. He got the superior position on his son, knees on the younger man's abdomen and began flailing at him, sending gore flying in all directions. Daken's screams were now filled with pain as well as rage.

Captain vaulted the pair, knowing he was headed in the right direction. It all but broke him not to stay and help but he was no match for a berserker Wolverine. Their only hope was to stop this infection at the source.

Another wave of fear and pain hit him, accompanied by nausea, despair, hatred. 

He was ready for it now, shedding it like his shield shed bullets, barely a hitch in his step. He turned a corner, around a boulder and what he saw there did stop him, his breath congealing in his lungs.

*****

Shadowcat's hand passed through Hulk's skin, directly above his heart.

*****

In the air above, Thor and Iron Man tumbled topsy turvy away from the quarry, suddenly overcome by the gale-force wind Storm had called up in her fury.

*****

Falcon made a desperate jinking dive and the edge of the wind threw off his trajectory. Rogue's bare palm slapped against the back of his neck. Instantly, he felt his consciousness shatter as her power ripped away his mind, his memories, his abilities. But he had no powers to steal and his flight suit would not obey her. Locked together, they began to plummet to the earth, both stunned and incapacitated.

*****

Black Widow leapt off Colossus' shoulder, aiming for a high boulder nearby but she was used to the Hulk and his slower reflexes. The big Russian managed to snag her ankle in mid-air and raised her high, like a child about to smash a doll.

*****

Captain Marvel was struck by another blast from Cyclops's eye beams and it was too much; even the Kree gift could not take it all in. She tumbled and hit the ground hard, every nerve on fire. Summers stalked over to her where she lay, his hand coming up. He would open the visor the whole way and fry her where she lay.

*****

At the Tower, Mockingbird laughed, high and clear. 

Triumphant.

*****

"Now, Hawkeye!" Captain America yelled, hurling his shield at the abomination in front of him. 

The Brood Queen--massive, bloated body heavy with eggs--hunched over the small form of Professer X in his wheelchair. Her tongue, protruding from between her dagger teeth, wrapped around his neck. His face was set in an expression of pure agony. Cap's shield flew directly towards them.

*****

On the ridge above the quarry, Hawkeye stepped out from his cover, uncoiling from under the ledge he'd marked as the rest of the team were going into battle. His bow rose and the single arrow already strung was released with no conscious motion.

Pure zen archery: he did not shoot the arrow. The universe aligned along his arm and he could not have stopped its flight.

*****

"The only person _more_ null than Steve, Sharon, was Clint in his fugue state, waiting for his target. Psylocke said it was like he wasn't even there. No telepath, not even Xavier, can affect what they can't sense."

*****

The arrow hit the back of the Brood Queen's skull, in the place where her armoured plating and spines could not protect, and sank in half its length. At the same time, Captain America's shield smashed through Xavier's wheelchair, sending his limp form tumbling away from the alien monster controlling him.

*****

Shadowcat's fingers stopped, perhaps a joint length inside the Hulk. Her face contracted and she pulled away from him abruptly as the gamma radiation infused cells of the Hulk's body rejected her ability to phase through them.

*****

Iron Man righted himself, his stabilizers firing at max just in time to snatch the limp forms of Falcon and Rogue out of the air in front of him.

*****

Thor yelled a joyous battle cry and hurled Mjolner towards Storm, letting the hammer cut through the wind, the snow, the lightning she was throwing at him.

*****

Black Widow jammed both her Widow's Bites against Colossus' wrist and snapped them onto full power. Living metal was still metal.

She felt the ghost of the jolt even through her insulated suit as his hand spasmed open with the electrical shock.

*****

Captain Marvel lurched up, her fist glowing with the accumulated energy absorbed from her fight and punched the visor right off of Cyclops's face. He spun sideways, his eye beam cutting a trench into the dirt and rock of the wall nearby.

*****

And Daken, with the last tenuous grasp he had on consciousness, pressed both his fists into his father's body and released his claws one last time, impaling flesh, bone, organs...and the parasite that was eating him alive from the inside. 

*****

The explosive arrow detonated with a thick, soft _whump_.

The Brood Queen's head shattered like a thrown glass, spewing ichor and slime across the nearby rocks. Captain America crouched over Xavier's prone body, protecting them both with his shield.

As one, the X-Men screamed, clutching their torsos. When they all uncurled, their eyes were clear for the first time. 

The tempest above them winked out as though it had never been. Storm landed next to Captain America. She dropped to her knees next to Xavier, touching his face. 

"Professor? Professor? Is it over?" She said in that beautiful accent of hers, her voice almost child-like.

Wolverine staggered into view, his skin bulging and warping as his healing factor bludgeoned the alien infection out of his system. He had Daken--unconscious--cradled in his arms.

"Yeah, Ororo. Think it is." He looked at Steve. "Rogers, tell me....tell me, back there in Salem. Mockingbird--did I?"

"Yes," Captain America, simply. 

The small dark man fell to one knee, laying his son down on the ground, his face blank and cold but horror in his eyes.

"She's still alive Logan," Cap continued swiftly. "It's a long story and we have other things to do right now. But she's alive."

"No way," Wolverine muttered, sounding slightly...piqued.

"Thank heaven for small mercies," said Xavier in his plummy almost-English accent. He sat up, patting Storm on the arm reassuringly. "I can sense no more Brood Queens in the area, juvenile or otherwise--the egg in Wolverine must have been the only one." He touched his forehead with two fingers. "The people of Salem will remain asleep until we can get them back to their homes."

Iron Man landed, releasing Falcon and Rogue, followed by Thor carrying Hawkeye.

Captain Marvel limped into view, supporting Cyclops who was fumbling at a belt pouch for a spare visor, eyes squeezed shut. Black Widow and Colossus chatted in Russian just behind Bruce Banner (shivering and shirtless) and Kitty Pryde walking and talking together.

"Hey, guys, Kitty's got an idea for how to get the eggs out of people's bodies," Bruce said before screwing up his nose. "Wow, those things smell _bad_ on the inside."

 

*****

Hours later the two teams had finally finished their clean up. Shadowcat had phased the Brood embryos out of each of the humans and Storm, Cyclops, Captain Marvel, Thor and Iron Man had burned the alien bodies to carbon, then collected the black ash into a container. Abigail Brand had been very specific about disposal.

Hill and the National Guard Special Team had moved in to gently transport the citizens of Salem Center back to their homes. Xavier assured the group they would all wake up in the morning, with no memory of what had happened other than the missing time.

The Guard commander decided to go with the old standard of 'gas leak'.

The X-Men were all still groggy and disturbed but they were super heros. They'd have their collective mental break down back at the mansion when everything was safe. It was going to take weeks to work out what had happened in any case.

Wolverine had refused to believe Mockingbird was alive until she spoke to him on the phone. After their conversation (she called him a pussy and told him she kicked his ass) he was back to mostly his usual self. He was even better once they found his uniform discarded in the quarry and he was no longer walking around naked.

Somewhere in that time Daken woke up and left, silently, alone. They had all been expecting it but Logan loped off into the gathering dusk for a while, returning with a sad and defeated air.

"But, you know, he came anyway," he was heard muttering to Storm.

As he was doing his final check on the area, Captain America saw Cyclops wave at him from the far wall of the quarry, where he and Captain Marvel had brawled.

They were there when Steve trotted over, both staring at something on the ground, still in smoking pieces.

"What's up Carol, Scott?" Steve asked.

Cyclops was hard to read on a good day, with his eyes permanently obscured by his visor or glasses, but his body language was tense. Carol crouched down and rose up with a piece of metal in her hand, wires dangling off it. 

"I thought I saw this just before Cyke's beams tore through it. Embedded into the rock wall here, deep." Danvers held out the wrecked technology.

Captain America studied it, his head quirked. "That's odd looking. Is it Brood?"

"No," Captain Marvel shook her head. "Brand says the Brood don't use mechanical tech, they use biologicals." She clutched the item a little harder, her hand starting to glow.

"I think I recognize it though, Steve. It looks like some of the stuff that was lying around on the day I was...created."

She looked at the leaders of the two most powerful super heros teams in the world.

"It's--I think it's a beacon."

Her hand flared, the metal melting and dripping through her fingers.

"It's Kree. They're coming."


End file.
